Chané Laforet

Chane Laforet (シャーネ・ラフォレット Shāne Raforetto) is the beautiful, dagger wielding daughter of Huey Laforet and Renee Paramedes Branvillier. Although her father is one of the original immortals who had been aboard the Advena Avis in 1711, she is actually mortal.

She is one of the main characters in the Prohibition Era Timeline, and is still alive in the 2002 timeline.

Appearance
Chane bears a striking resemblance to her father and little sister. The black hair and golden eyes aside, they all also share the same caucasian complexion and lean build. However, unlike the other two members of her family, Chane's features are more pointed and pronounced, with a pointier chin and less flowing bangs. Her hair is cut in a style that is uncommon for the Prohibition Era, being that the hair in the back is longer than her front bangs so that they do not interfere with her eyes, however these bangs slightly vary in length in covering the parts of her face.

She usually wears a strapped black dress adorned with a matching black rose on the far left side on the strap resembling a Spanish style.

Personality
Thanks to Huey's manipulation and brainwashing from birth Chane has only been taught to be loyal to her father and true to this childhood Chane is thoroughly devoted to Huey, nearly to the point of fanaticism as described by the members of the Lemures Cult. At a young age, she requested that Huey remove her voice so that she would be unable to reveal his secrets to anyone. (They communicate with each other telepathically, and as such even when they are apart so Huey can maintain contact with her.) The very thought of her father simply using her throws her into a rage and she was in complete denial of it (though later came to accept it).

In spite of this she was by no mean immoral to the extent that Huey was, and was openly against the idea of taking an entire train hostage even if it was for the release of her own father from prison.

However upon chaos that happened aboard the Flying Pussyfoot, including her run-in with the Rail Tracer and Ladd Russo proclaiming that Huey may just be using her (which was true) Chane began to grow more out of her shell and develop a more individual personality than what her father had originally intended. This was only furthered by her time with Jaccuzzi Splot and being kidnapped by Graham Spector. At first very confused by the kindness of Jaccuzzi Splot's gang, she began to question all that her father had taught her. Suddenly with friends and Claire Stanfield proclaiming his love for her, Chane began to further distance herself from her father's grasp and started to develope more into her own person and care more for her friends than before.

She even went so far as to openly side against her father's agents - the Lamia - consisting of even her own sister (though Chane is unaware of her sister's existence) and fighting along side the Legendary Assassin Vino despite once wanting to kill him to protect her father.

Biography
In 1931, Chane boarded the Flying Pussyfoot as part of the terrorist group that wished to use its passengers as hostages, in order to negotiate Huey's release from prison. Chane did not approve of the terrorists' methods, and knew they only wished to obtain Huey in order to gain access to his secrets about Immortality. She also knew that at some point, the group planned to betray and kill her. Yet, she went along with their plans in order to see how much they would be able to accomplish.

While aboard the Flying Pussyfoot, Chane has a run-in with the sadistic hitman Ladd Russo, from the Russo Mafia Family. They engage in a fierce battle, where Chane's fighting skills impress and delight Ladd. The fight is eventually interrupted by the "Rail Tracer," who takes a liking to Chane and proposes to her. The proposal shocks the young girl as it is the first time someone has ever professed love to her. At the Rail Tracer's request, she engraves her reply to him into the train's roof.

After the events aboard the Flying Pussyfoot, Chane is taken in and cared for by Jacuzzi Splot and his gang. Their kindness confuses Chane, who does not understand why they went out of their way to help her as she is a stranger and member of the terrorist group. While in their company, she is kidnapped by Graham Specter, who mistakes her for Eve Genoard. At Graham's warehouse, she surprises the young man and his gang by attacking him with her daggers, thus revealing to them that she is not Eve. Her battle skills impress Graham, who begins to get excited at the prospect of fighting her. However, Jacuzzi interrupts the fight as he intends to rescue Chane. It does not take long before Nice Holystone and the rest of Jacuzzi's gang also show up to help both Jacuzzi and Chane. Chane is dumbfounded by their actions, and is shocked even more when the Rail Tracer also shows up to her aid. Once again, the Rail Tracer, who is in fact Claire Stanfield (aka. Vino), an assassin for the Gandor family, confesses his love and proposes to her.

During the events of the Mist Wall (The Slash, 1933) Chane has a flashback to the day where her father was arrested. She wanted to rescue him, but he told her not to. She realizes that she now cares for people other than her father, such as the members of Jacuzzi's gang and Claire Stanfield. She then looks out the window and sees Tick and Maria walking through the garden. Thinking that they are going to harm her newfound friends/family, she exits to the garden and attacks them. However, after hearing Jacuzzi's scream, she rushes inside. As she enters, she sees Dallas Genoard regenerating, and seeing as the only other person she's seen regenerate is her father, she believes that with more immortals, her father will be in greater danger of being devoured, therefore she then attacks Tim, but is blocked by Adele who cuts her face.

Abilities
Chane is, on the whole, one of the most capable combatants in the series, capable of going toe-to-toe with Ladd Russo, Graham Specter, and Maria Barcelito to name a few, all of which are highly powerful mafiosi in their own right (the former two being the two strongest members of the Russo Family, and the latter being one of the top hit men in America). She is particularly skilled in the use of her twin knives. She is also highly athletic, capable of maneuvering the exterior of the Pussyfoot with ease.

She was responsible for numerous whitecoat casualties on board the Flying Pussyfoot, and was considered the blackcoat's "trump card" against the faction (though Ladd was her apparent equal). She is capable of reacting to and moving faster than bullets, shown when she bats away shots fired from Ladd's shotgun, much to his surprise.

It should be noted, however, that Felix Walken was able to casually dodge all of her strikes, along with Ladd's.

Family
Huey Laforet is Chane's father, and the supposedly only person to ever show her any love for most of her life. She was present during alot of Huey's recruitments and experiments since childhood. Her Fantaticism is so great that she even became mute for the sake of keeping his secrets. However she is not completely blind to her father's immorality and knows full well that she is simply a disposibly convience for him, and has even gone against her father in more recent developments. Huey's own reaction to this is unclear and neutral at best showing a somewhat appathetic attitude in regards to his daughter.

Leeza Laforet is Chane' s younger sister though they have yet to formaly meet and Chane is unaware that she even has a sister, Leeza is fully aware of Chane's existence, and fought against her attempting to kill her but one day wishes that the three of them can live as a family. Chane meets Leeza in 1935 - C A Grateful Bet manga.

During the Flying Pussyfoot incident, Claire Stanfield immediately fell in love with and proposed to her, to her confusion. After the incident involving Claire's effortless defeat of Ladd Russo (who had just gone toe-to-toe with her) Chane showed fear towards him, and considered him to be one of the biggest threats to her father that she had ever encountered. Despite Claire's open solipsism about the world being his dream and thus immortality being useless to him because he could never die. When in Manhattan Chane made the dicision to kill Claire so as he would not be a threat to her father, however after Claire sent her a present she hesitated on her devotion to her father for the first time in her life, shocked that someone besides her father had given her a gift. When she was captured by Graham Spector, Claire came to rescue her. After "buying" the Felix Walken alias, Chane was the only one permitted to refer to him by his birth name (despite being unable to speak at all). Though their is still some inquiry about thier life throughout the Prohibition Era it is revealed in the 2002 timeline, that Chane and Claire got married, after she eventually fell in love with him and adopted his new last name, Walken.

Later in life, during her nineties, she has at least two great-grandchildren named Claudia and Charron. Chane taught Charron many of her moves which help him greatly in his career as a stunt double, and while both are highly alike in personality and silence, Firo noted that Charon was mimicking Keith's silent disposition, and not Chane's muteness.

It was also noted that some of Chane's other relatives (children, grandchildren and possibly even her adoptive-in-laws family) have some of Chane's silent tendecies.

Chane's mother - Who the mother of Chane and Leeza Laforet in the anime is unknown. Chane has never met or known her mother at all. But in the manga, it's strongly impilied that Renee Paramedes Branvillier (who was Huey's alchemy teacher in the 1700.s ), is the mother of both Chane and Leeza Laforet. In the novels it has been confirmed (Felix Walken even mistook her for Chane's older sister, but was corrected). Later in the novels, Renee continues to pursue Huey attempting to reclaim Chane for a purpose, most likely for an experiment.

Lemures
Though Chane was a member of the cult, the other members held her in contempt for being in Huey's favor. She had openly rejected the idea of taking hostages but still went along with their strategy, regardless.

Though she was well respected as being their strongest in physical combat and a valued asset amongst the group they still conspired to kill via "Friendly Fire" when suppposedly aiming at Ladd Russo when the two were locked in a stalemate of close combat. It was this attempt on her life that made her decide to heed the Rail Tracer's advice and jump ship along with the Cargo that Nice and Nick were dumping in the lake for later retrival.

When she and the other sole surviving member of the disaster - Second-in-Command Spike - who was also the very sniper who had attempted to take her life she reacted in shock that another member of the Black suits had survived or had not been arrested; and with Spike's rising duplicitous allegiances and conduct coming to light Chane is growing more and more concerned about such a dangerous man being at large and who he really works for.

Jacuzzi Splot's Gang
Prior to joining Chane had had a brief encounter with Nick and Nice Hollystone on the Flying Pussyfoot and as she was a member of the Black Suits (Lemures Cult) on the train she was technically their enemy. However other than the glance mentioned before they never really had a negative reaction. Indeed they held no ill will when she was rescued from the lake and Nice and Nick were shocked to see her again.

Though at first confused at their acts of kindness and Jacuzzi's concern for her when they were complete strangers, Jacuzzi has earned Chane's loyalty and she has sense joined up with the bootleggers usually serving as additional muscle and aiding in protecting him, and is just as loyal to her new friends as she was to her father. However while her loyalty for her father was out of a one sided love, her loyalty to her friends is out of reciprocal affections of friendship, respect and trust and Chane truly feels that she has finally found a place for herself to belong.

Her loyalty to her friends is so much that she has even stood in her own father's way (the same father she was once a fanatic towards) and will continue to do so if her friends are put in danger again.

Trivia

 * Her first name: Chane could be derieved from the   French origin meaning "Oak-hearted'  or the older African origin meaning "plant.  Her last name "Laforet"  maybe derieved from the French phrase meaning "The Forest".
 * Chane can be compared to Celty Sturulson, The dullhan protagonist of "Durarara. Both characters being mute and confined to speaking through writing, or for Celty texting.