Yang Xiao Long

"Instead of "sweetheart", you can just call me sir."

- Yang Xiao Long

Yang Xiao Long (Sun Little-Dragon) is one of the main protagonist and the fourth character introduced in RWBY. Her weapons of choice are the Dual Ranged Shot Gauntlets, Ember Celica. She made her appearance on June 1st at A-Kon in Dallas, in the "Yellow" Trailer, in which she interrogates Junior for information, and later fights him and his henchmen at his club.

Appearance
Yang appears as a young girl, wearing yellow, brown, orange, and black. She wears a tan vest with gold piping over a yellow, cleavage-and-midriff baring shirt with a black crest that resembles a small body of fire. The vest has puffy cap sleeves with black cuffs. On the sides of the cuffs, there are two small golden buttons. She wears a brown belt with a buckle, a pouch, and a small banner-seeming object. The same black crest appears on this banner, only golden in color. She wears black shorts under her belt, which in the back, resembles a pleated skirt. Over the shorts but under the belt is a white, asymmetrical back skirt.

She wears an orange circle scarf (with no apparent edges) around her neck, but no other discernible jewelry. She wears brown, mid-calf platform boots that look like leather, with orange socks of different lengths. The right leg also has a grey bandanna looking object wrapped around the top of her right boot (reader's point of view). She also wears finger-less black gloves. Her weapons, which look like two yellow mechanized gauntlets with a black design, go over these gloves. Her hair flows loose and messy, with a few tendrils sticking out. She has a pale complexion with Lilac eyes. Her hair seems to burst aflame and her eyes turn red the longer she fights, or when she becomes angry.

While on her motorcycle, she wears yellow goggles and a matching helmet that bears her crest in black.

Personality
From what is shown in the trailer, Yang is shown to be a bright and cheerful young lady who doesn't back down from any challenge. She's also witty, evident from her retort directed at Junior when they first met. She seems to enjoy fighting, as she is constantly smiling while doing battle. Yang seems confident in her abilities as well, going to the club by herself without any assistance, knowing that she would most likely have to fight her way out. It seems she likes to use force to get information out of people, shown when she grabbed Junior's genitals in order for him to reveal a certain girl's location. Yang may also be a little headstrong, as there were probably more tactful options she could have used to get more information out of Junior. Also, she charged into battle pretty quickly without any provocation. This shows that she may not always use her head and just punch first, implying that she is reckless. However, she has shown that she uses her head sometimes, visible when engaging Melanie in a series of footwork fake-outs. Most notable however, is her attitude regarding her hair. When Junior pulled out some of her locks, Yang became extremely frustrated and delivered the final blow, implying she values her hair greatly.

Abilities
Yang's fighting style is a drastic turn compared to Ruby, Weiss and Blake, who each use a blade of sorts. Yang fights using a pair of gauntlets/braces that can retract into wristlets, and her fighting style is much more aggressive than the other members of Team RWBY, from what was seen in the trailers so far. Her way of fighting is similar to a classic RPG (role-playing-game) class called Fighter or Monk, since she uses various kicks and punches along with a few throws. If anything, her fighting style is a form of Kickboxing given her footwork. Along with this, Yang seems to be the physically strongest of the group. This is seen on numerous occasions throughout, from Junior flying several feet away (and breaking through a glass structure) due to the impact of Yang's punch, to her causing a ripple in the ground which subsequently knocked the surrounding opponents off their feet.

Ember Celica has barrels implanted inside that use bullets, and, when triggered, cause flames to erupt from the gauntlets to deal more damage. Her punches can shoot explosive rounds (due to the gauntlets) towards enemies at a distance, or create explosions in her foes' faces. Yang is also quite agile, and quick on her feet, swiftly blocking and dodging attacks while moving from place to place without lag. She can also use the momentum from Ember Celica's shots to propel herself in battle as well as spin herself around extremely quickly, much like how Ruby fights with the Crescent Rose. As she fights, the fire extends to her hair and her eyes turn red. The cause of this is unknown but it is possible that her emotions trigger this "Wreathed in Flames" state as seen towards the end when she was angered over the fact that several locks were pulled out by Junior. Her entire hair glowed white. She seems to be able to naturally summon fire around her as well. This is most notable when she prepares to attack Junior again, letting out a burst of fire energy around her.

Trivia

 * Yang (阳) is the Chinese character for sun and/or light, Xiao (小) is the character for small, and Long (龙) is the character for dragon. Therefore, her name roughly translates into "Little Light Dragon" and/or "Small Dragon of the Sun".
 * In Eastern culture, names are written with the last name coming before the individual's name, as in "Last name First name"; however, although Yang has a Chinese name, it seems she is referred to as Yang as opposed to Xiao Long, which is the Western style of name sequence. Therefore, although her name is Chinese, it is not written in the traditional Oriental style.
 * Yang's weapons and fighting style bears an uncanny resemblance to those of Ieyasu Tokugawa from Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes. She also shares the theme of the sun with him.
 * The CGI version looks just like Miki Hoshi from the The Idol Master series.
 * Her similarities to Bullet from BlazBlue are way too many to not notice.
 * In the "Yellow" trailer, Ruby encounters Yang, who calls her "sis". It was believed that this was just a greeting between one another but Monty has recently confirmed on twitter that it was not just a greeting.
 * Among the four protagonists, Yang is the only person to fight humans in her debut trailer.
 * Like Ruby, Yang uses two different sets of ammunition; one is colored gold and the second is colored red.
 * Yang is the only character seen so far that has her own vehicle. She is also the only one who appears to have a cellphone.
 * Yang uses the "Dempsey Roll" when fighting Junior.
 * In the "Yellow" Trailer, it appears that Yang is looking for the "Transient Princess", an artwork by Monty Oum based on Final Fantasy VIII's Rinoa.
 * Yang is the only girl that has eyes that change color.