Author's note: Before we see the plan in action, let's look at something else first.
While Weiss and Maria prepared for their trip to Argus, Sirena took the time to wander the academy a bit more. She may no longer be needed, but she could still do something for the people. She could train future huntsmen.
"Clover, there you are," Sirena said when she found the man she was looking for.
"Sirena, hello," Clover said and asked, "How are you?"
"A bit better, thanks," Sirena answered and said, "Anyway, I've heard you decided to upgrade your weapon. I feel like I'm one of the few people you know who can help you get better at it."
"Honestly, you're the only one," Clover said, "But yeah, I could use some help."
"Alright then, let's see what you're working with," Sirena said, and Clover extended his weapon into its fishing spear form.
"Here," Clover said and handed it to Sirena. She took it and looked it over.
"Not bad," Sirena said, giving it some stress tests, "But you need to be aware of it in closed quarters, too. Let's give it a try." She handed the spear back to him and drew her trident.
"What do you mean?" Clover asked. As reply, Sirena thrust her trident at him, and he barely had time to dodge. He recovered, activated his aura, backed away and blocked the next thrust, but ended up getting his spear stuck behind a corner, preventing him from countering immediately.
"This," Sirena answered and kicked him in the chest, sending him backwards against the wall. Just as he recovered from the attack, he had to dodge another one as Sirena's trident came for his head. The weapon got stuck in the wall and Clover tried to hit Sirena with a thrust. She jumped up and dodged the attack, holding her weapon's shaft. Clover was caught off-guard and took the back of Sirena's foot to the head, knocking him down. Sirena landed again and pulled her weapon from the wall.
"Wait, hold on, time out," Clover said and used his spear to get back up.
"See what I mean?" Sirena asked and helped him back up, "Polearms are very versatile, and you need to use your imagination to get the most of them."
"How do I do that?" Clover asked.
"Be creative," Sirena answered.
"I don't think I can do that," Clover said.
"It takes time," Sirena said, "You'll be good at it in no time. But I'd like to take care of another issue now, though I could probably use your help with it."
"Sure, what is it?" Clover asked.
"A little thing Salem's underlings have made," Sirena answered, "Follow me, we'll collect the right people for the job, and then we can deal with the issue."
"Sure," Clover said. Both collapsed their polearms again and got going, with Sirena taking the lead. They went to pick up Nora and arranged a transport for themselves, but planned a slight detour to take down a pack of Grimm on the way to their destination.
~o~
After Angela petrified a pack of Grimm, and copied Aura Storage and a dozen other semblances, the soldiers and Saphron looked around in awe, with the latter being the most impressed, as the former had already seen it happen a few times. Saphron walked around and tipped over a Beowolf, which shattered as it hit the ground. She jumped back a bit, expecting the Grimm to be set free, but nothing of the sort happened.
"This is… incredible," Saphron said and asked, "And I can really use your semblance now?"
"Yes, you can," Angela answered, "Every time you harm a Grimm, an orb will be created that recharges the nearest ally's aura a bit."
"Sounds useful," Saphron said, "I mean, I'm not a fighter, so maybe not for me, but if all these soldiers can also use it now, it would work really well with my own semblance."
"Exactly," Angela said, "But in any case, I will have to leave now. But someone else will come instead." She walked away while the soldiers started arranging the petrified Grimm in a grid outside the city wall, using them as obstacles to slow down attacking terrestrial Grimm in the future. When she was out of sight, a portal to Atlas opened and she switched places with Surge.
~o~
On their way to deal with the bigger issue, a few days before Weiss and Maria would leave for Argus, Nora, Sirena and Clover landed by a larger pack of Grimm, and the two women fused into Surge. She petrified the Grimm, and Clover copied her Chain Lightning semblance, which Sirena decided to share with Nora, just in case. They left the area and headed for their real target, the area where Marcus had set up Hellscape.
"So, what exactly are we dealing with?" Clover asked, and Nora rubbed her eyes.
"Hellscape," Sirena answered, "A semblance twisted by Salem's dark nature, which just keeps growing the more it kills. Eventually, it will also start spawning monsters to protect it from threats."
"How do we handle it?" Clover asked.
"Be creative," Sirena answered, "Know what you can do, and see how that can help."
"I need a plan," Clover said, starting to get frustrated.
"That's your problem," Nora said before Sirena could respond, "You're so used to Ironwood telling you what to do that you can't even think for yourself any more. My friends and I made it this far, overcame all kinds of odds, not because someone told us how to do it. Ruby and Jaune told us what needed to be done, and trusted us to get it done ourselves. They actually believe in us, respect us, have faith in us."
"Well said, Nora," Sirena said.
"Thanks," Nora said.
"But to summarize," Sirena said, "Don't tell others how to do things. Tell them what needs to be done, and let them surprise you."
"Well, if you say so," Clover said and looked down, trying to think of something. When they arrived at a ledge overlooking the infected area, the trio and their pilot stared in horror. Below them, the ground was covered in a thick black fog, with tentacles and arms lashing at anything that moved. Disembodied spectral heads with green mist trailing behind them patrolled the area, looking for any and all potential threats.
"What… are those?" Nora asked. The four Atlesian Knights they brought along took aim and trained their sniper rifles at the enemies.
"Target practice," Sirena answered, "Wait until they're grouped, then hit them." She rushed towards the area, firing icicles from her trident to draw the enemy's attention to herself. The black smoke condensed into shapeless blobs, which slowly inched towards Sirena as well. The robots opened fire, shooting bullets that looked like they were made from ice. As soon as they hit the blobs, their temperature dropped and they solidified as a wall, slowing down other blobs. As the blobs kept creeping over their frozen allies, they just kept being shot.
"Alright, here goes," Nora said and fired a lightning-dust canister into the floating skulls Sirena was fighting. They kept crashing through her like ghosts, poisoning her body and infecting her mind with visions of terror. Her physical attacks did nothing, and her semblance was rendered useless as well when faced with the incorporeal enemies. In the last moment, she created an air-goo clone and got out of reach of Nora's attack. The electric charge jumped from one enemy to the next, taking them all out.
"Good job," Sirena said, "Now we just need to take out the slimes." The Knights ran out of ammo and stopped firing, so Sirena gave them the order to leave their weapons, then charge and self-destruct. She extended yellow aura vines from her feet and jumped up, holding the Knights with vines from her arms, then threw them into the area. They exploded, dealing quite a bit of damage and opening a few pockets without any limbs.
"So, what about those blobs?" Clover asked, pointing at the slimes that had begun thawing again, as well as the ones that had joined them. Before they could react, however, the trio saw a pack of Sabyr gather where Sirena had just fought, which noticed the group. The slimes, Grimm, and even more skeletal heads, which had formed from the black fog, all began moving towards the trio, and they all knew that they were in trouble. Sirena tried to find a solution, going through several scenarios, when Clover spoke up.
"Nora, I need some tailwind," Clover said, and Nora activated her maiden powers to create a powerful gust of wind blowing towards their enemies. The spectral heads were blown away, while the slimes were still far behind their allies, leaving only the Grimm.
"Great idea," Sirena said, and wanted to add something more, but Clover jumped down the slope and skidded towards the Grimm, holding his spear to impale the Grimm, which were struggling to move uphill against the wind. Clover kicked one Grimm in the head, setting off a chain reaction that knocked them all down, and shot air-dust from his spear to propel himself upward and over the tumbling monsters. He changed cartridges mid-air and electrocuted the Grimm, many skeletal heads, and a few slimes, killing everything he hit and leaving a plethora of healing orbs. Nora stopped the wind and slid down the slope as well, building up electricity.
"Here comes Nora!" Nora called out, and all the orbs homed in on her as she created a lightning-dust crystal. She threw the crystal into the infected area, and Clover hit it with a lightning bolt from his spear, triggering it. The explosion electrocuted a few limbs, but the shock jumped from one to another, quickly taking out the entire area.
"That… that felt amazing," Clover said, looking at his hands, a wide grin on his face, "I just did that. I went, and did something, and it worked. Now I get why you do that so often. It's great."
"Took you long enough," Nora said in a friendly tone, "Now let's get back to Atlas. Something tells me Sirena just had you tag along so you can get experience thinking for yourself." They headed back up the slope and entered the Manta, where Sirena was already waiting for them. On the way back, she verified Nora's suspicions, leaving Clover with the task of figuring out how he felt about the trick she pulled.
~o~
Despite the walls being fully repaired, and reinforced by Sophie's swarm, Grimm kept coming to Vale for seemingly no reason. Sophie insisted this was the Grimm Queen's doing, and since no one had any other ideas, everyone just accepted it. Team CRDL were fighting a particularly tough horde of Grimm trying to push through the city's main gate, and had to fall back. Just as the Grimm broke down the temporary barrier supposed to keep them out, they were killed by incredibly precise, and powerful, shots to the head. The boys looked around and spotted four creatures resembling old sniper rifles used by the Atlas military before the current assault rifles were invented. They were significantly bigger than normal rifles, big enough to be ridden, and had four round, segmented legs made from shiny silver metal. Their bodies were more curved, with the sight being raised, and an orange rhomboid gem under their sight, with the sight resembling a red glowing eye. When the creatures couldn't spot any more Grimm, they turned around and left, moving surprisingly silently for their size.
~o~
Team SSSN was walking through the forest around Argus, looking for Grimm to take out. The river nearby was dried up due to Neptune pushing the water away, much to his teammates' annoyance. They heard a strange sound in the woods and drew their weapons, getting ready for combat. When they heard wood crack in the fog, Scarlet fired a shot into the mist, and Neptune fired a short three-round burst as well. Surge rushed them and countered, with her eyes closed, drawing her golden lance as she approached. When she was within reach, she launched Neptune into the wet riverbed with a thrust.
"Neptune!" Sun called out and attacked with his staff. Surge blocked the attack. Sage swung his massive sword, but Surge spun around and pushed Sun back before blocking the sword strike. Scarlet tried to hit her with his sword, but the pattern repeated and the attack was blocked.
"Get back," Neptune said and slammed his hand into the mud, charging the residual water in it. The ground dried up immediately as the water was drawn towards Surge, and a large bubble of water formed around the fusion. Just as Neptune was about to electrocute the bubble, the water froze solid and Surge broke free, pastel purple energy emitting from her silver eyes.
"Enough," Surge said, her voice booming through the snowy woods, and the boys backed away from her and put their weapons away.
"Wait, silver eyes?" Sun asked and said, "Please don't hurt us, we're trying to help, promise. I even copied a silver-eyed warrior's semblance. We just shot at you because we were expecting Grimm in the area, after reports of them moving in this direction due to the virus outbreak in Argus." Surge turned off her maiden powers and landed on the ground again, but instead of simply calming down, she had an amused smile on her face.
"I know that, silly," Surge said, "I was just pulling your legs. To be honest, I expected you to be on your way to Vacuo at this point. But I may just be able to give you one more gift before we part ways again."
"Wait, you know us?" Sun asked, "Who are you, anyway?"
"I'm Surge," Surge answered, "I'm the fusion of Nora and Sirena. Originally, only Sirena wanted to come here, but after seeing Clover in action, I figured I could let you all copy my semblance as well."
"Wait, fusion?" Neptune asked, and he, Sage and Scarlet looked at Sun, who just shrugged.
"It is the perfect union of two to four individuals," Surge answered, "Mind, body and soul merge into one, creating a being more powerful than the sum of its parts."
"Why would we go to Vacuo, though?" Scarlet asked.
"To complete your education," Surge answered.
"Plus, I could show you guys my old stomping grounds," Sun added.
"So wait, can we really copy your semblance?" Neptune asked, "What does it do, exactly?"
"I told you it's possible," Sun said, "Not my fault Retaliation isn't all that flashy."
"My semblance is called Chain Lightning," Surge answered, "When I land an electric attack on something I consider an enemy, the attack hits another enemy within a certain radius around that enemy, repeating until there are no more enemies for it to jump to."
"That sounds useful," Neptune said, "Thanks. Let's do this, then." Sun, Scarlet and Sage all nodded in agreement.
"Alright, then all we have to do is wait," Surge said, looking at an imaginary wrist watch, "The soldiers and Grimm should be arriving here shortly."
"Wait, soldiers?" Sun asked.
"And Grimm?" Neptune asked, and he, Scarlet and Sage got ready to fight.
"I asked some Atlas soldiers to meet me nearby," Surge said, "And we need Grimm for this to work. Copying my semblance is a side-effect of looking into the light from my silver eyes, which I can only unleash in the presence of Grimm. The light will grant you an imprint of my soul, which you can use to make your aura behave like mine at will. But the same will also work the other way around, so I will be able to use your semblances at my own discretion. Now come, it is almost time." She walked away, leading the boys to a road that connected Argus with nearby settlements. On the way, she used Mentor to teach the boys how to enter their soul cores and told them about the drawbacks, just in case, as Chain Lightning was a passive semblance that activated every time the user used an electric attack. An Atlas military truck brought half a dozen soldiers, as well as Saphron.
"Hello," Saphron said and asked, "Are you a fusion, too?"
"I am, yes," Surge answered, "My name is Surge. I'm made of Nora and Sirena, and I will copy your semblance, instead of Sirena. I will share it with her though, so there is nothing to worry about."
"That's good," Saphron said, despite still not being entirely used to everything. She just knew that what was happening sounded like a good thing, and had mostly positive results so far, and she was happy to help people in need, so she went along whenever people asked her to help them, doing her best to make their lives easier.
"It is, yes," Surge said, "But now we need to get ready." She looked off into the distance, towards the mountains, and two Geist and a Poltergeist attacked. A pack of Beowolves charged in first, allowing the other Grimm to build bodies from nearby rocks while the soldiers took out the weaker Grimm. When two Petra Gigas charged through the other Grimm, the soldiers were shocked with fear. Surge drew her lance and made the tip split into three plates and slide back, revealing the hidden grenade launcher. The handle extended backwards and part of the hand guard folded forward, turning into a handle. She destroyed the rock bodies with two shots, exposing the Grimm. Sun sent two of his clones to restrain them, and Surge petrified all the Grimm with her silver eyes.
"Amazing," Scarlet said after the light had faded, and he and his teammates looked at the petrified Grimm. Surge shared Aura Storage with Sirena, and just as everyone wanted to leave again, the Poltergeist in his bipedal dragon-like body attacked. The soldiers immediately opened fire, while Saphron ran for cover and began filling her bracelet with aura, while the nearby healing orbs refilled her aura.
"Get into position," Surge called out, using Telepathy to tell the soldiers how to move. The soldiers switched their guns to burst and were put into groups. One group fired a three-round burst and repositioned, while another group fired a burst to draw the monster's attention. The field was littered with healing orbs from the Beowolves, and Saphron used them to fill her bracelet as much as possible. Suddenly, the Poltergeist focused on Saphron and prepared an attack.
"Watch out!" Sun called out and entered his Alpha State, manifesting his aura as ears on his head and claws on his fingers. He created a massive army of clones, which held on to the monster and anything solid nearby, including rocks and trees, forming chains to pull the massive beast away from Saphron.
"Do it!" Neptune called out to Sun and slammed his hands on the ground, drawing water out of the plants and ground to make it stick to the monster. Surge secretly entered her own Alpha State and used Aura Amp to keep Neptune's aura from depleting due to the heavy use, and the Poltergeist fell to the ground. All of Sun's copies swarmed the Grimm and held on to it, detonating at once. The water bubble rippled, but since the water stuck to the Poltergeist, it stayed intact and protected their allies. When the smoke settled in the water, the Grimm was no more, and so the bubble burst, leaving nothing but stone shards. Sun and Surge both left their Alpha State, and Neptune looked at his hands, both in shock and amazement.
"Dude, that was awesome," Sun said, "I didn't know you had it in you."
"Me neither, to be honest," Neptune said, "But… I guess I had to have it in me, otherwise someone would've died." Everyone turned to Saphron, who was sitting on the ground, still staring at where the Grimm had just stood, towering above her with its grating rock limbs ready to smash into her. Surge walked over to her to calm her down.
"Are you alright?" Surge asked, and Saphron calmed down a bit, her breathing returning to mostly normal.
"Y- yes, yes, I think so," Saphron answered and asked, "Is… is this what my brother does every day?"
"Not every day, no," Surge answered and sat down beside her, "He knows it can happen, but he also knows that he is trained to deal with it. But, not everyone is." Surge split up again, leaving Nora to rub her aching eyes.
"If you want, I can stay with you for a while," Sirena said, "Maybe it will help you feel safe, until you can process all this."
"Thanks, I'd like that," Saphron said and asked, "Can we go home now?"
"Of course," Sirena answered. She made a portal to Maria for Nora, which closed after she walked through. The soldiers, Saphron, Sirena and Team SSSN all got into the troop transport vehicle, and headed back to Argus, from where the boys had initially planned to take a Manta to Atlas, but decided to change their plans a little bit.
~o~
Nora fired a lightning-dust canister into another pack of Sabyr, killing them all as the attack jumped from one Grimm to the next, dealing increased damage thanks to the passive bonus from her maiden powers. Angela went around, holding various pieces of jewelry, and storing her aura in them, while the healing orbs kept recharging her aura.
"Thanks for the help," Angela said.
"No problem," Nora said, "I love killing Grimm, and with this new semblance, it's even easier than before to take down larger groups in a single hit."
"Yeah, you're welcome," Marrow said, "Stopping that many Grimm is a great practice for me too, so I really appreciate the opportunity."
"Guys, I've got another pack," Blake said and pointed south, "That way. It'll be a bit, but we can reach them before we lose aura."
"Alright, let's go," Angela said and summoned four Griffons to take the group to the nearest pack of Grimm. Along the way, Angela discussed with herself who should get which semblance, and decided to share Aura Storage with Maria, while sharing Spectral Healing with Weiss. In the distance, a large pack of Beowolves came into view, easily five dozen, and the group got ready.
"One more time," Blake said and flew ahead to lure them in. Marrow followed her and stopped the ones that were close enough together. Once the pack was grouped nicely, Nora took them out in one hit.
"Nice work, guys," Angela said, "You can head back now, I'll come later." She collected the healing orbs while storing her aura in various pieces of jewelry. Once an item was at capacity, she sent it to the base for later, when their plan was ready to be set into motion. It wasn't the best plan, but it would help kill Grimm, so it was worth a shot.
~o~
Arkos combed through another book on aura theory, cross-referencing the scientific measures with their own experience in feeling aura, and checking the military's aura sensors and readings for every soldier, since the military used to need to know which position a military huntsman was best suited for, before going with a more traditional approach of letting people make their own decisions. They retreated into their soul core and tried again.
"And, are you ready?" Jaune asked and looked at Pyrrha. They stood in a training area, with training dummies and shooting targets made from hay on one side.
"Yes," Pyrrha answered, "Let's go." The duo headed inside, entering a castle-like structure and going to a large tower that housed a medieval-style laboratory one would imagine to find a wizard in.
"So, what do we try today?" Jaune asked, walked up to a pedestal next to a research table and made a book fly towards himself.
"I thought that maybe we could try making a new one for a change," Pyrrha answered and walked over to him.
"Are you sure?" Jaune asked, giving her a surprised look.
"Yeah," Pyrrha answered, "I mean, Niob made some, so maybe we could do it, too."
"I guess you're right," Jaune said, "Still, it feels weird to think about that."
"How about we start small, then?" Pyrrha asked and suggested, "Just change High Voltage to absorb heat, for example. Or see what we can make from Petal Burst."
"Let me think," Jaune said, gave it some thought, and finally answered, "Alright, sounds good. Let's do this. But maybe we should start by combining semblances instead."
"Sure," Pyrrha said. They decided to begin by combining Aura Amp and Shielding, which would hopefully allow them to project the shield onto others. After looking up both semblances' aura structure, they manifested a copy of both on the table and began carefully connecting the two as best as they could. The structures were very rigid, and didn't like being connected, despite both being born from Jaune.
"Why isn't this working?" Jaune asked angrily and slammed his hands on the table after what felt like hours of hard work, causing the few connections they had made to break apart again and dispelling the copies of the aura structures.
"It's fine," Pyrrha said, trying to calm him down, "Remember how long it took to copy Nora's semblance?"
"I do," Jaune answered and sighed, "It's just, Aura Amp is my semblance, and Shielding is the semblance of our fusion. It should be easy to combine the two."
"Maybe we could try something else," Pyrrha suggested, "Why don't we see what we can make with Petal Burst now?"
"Why are you so focused on Ruby's semblance?" Jaune asked and said, "Not that I mind, I'm just curious. This is the fifth time you brought it up."
"I guess I'm just curious," Pyrrha answered, "We read about all those semblances, and all the things they can and can't do, and something like Petal Burst is only ever hinted at. The next thing is Jenny's semblance, but even she doesn't turn into a cluster of rose petals. Argent's Evaporation is also close, but he can't split into different groups of fog."
"I guess that makes sense," Jaune said, "Alright, let's try it." The duo pulled up a copy of Ruby's aura structure, and immediately noticed a spark of light within the usually monotone network of focal points and connections. Surprisingly, the connections and focal points were a lot easier to move than any other, and easily bent into a new shape. Jaune was a bit worried he'd break something, or make a useless semblance. Pyrrha kept moving the focal points around, and both realized they had no goal in mind, and were literally just messing around.
"How about we make it an offensive semblance?" Pyrrha asked and said, "You know, so you have something for long range combat, aside from the disk launcher."
"Great idea," Jaune said and asked, "By the way, did you notice that this is really easy to change?"
"I did," Pyrrha answered, "Maybe it's because we're Ruby's friends."
"Could be," Jaune said, and both got back to manipulating the aura structure.
"This is weird," Pyrrha said after a while, and tried moving a focal point in the red energy structure a bit more.
"What is it?" Jaune asked, but also found the point he was moving to suddenly resist.
"The focal point is suddenly stuck," Pyrrha answered.
"Weird," Jaune said, "Let's leave those for later, and try others for now."
"Alright," Pyrrha said, and both began moving other focal points, but noticed that they resisted movement in certain directions or past a certain point. As they kept going, the options to move focal points slowly decreased, until some focal points would only budge by a centimeter or less, and only in a very specific direction. As they were about to give up, the structure glowed bright red, and shifted to a slightly darker tone before settling and returning to normal.
"What was that?" Jaune asked.
"I don't know," Pyrrha answered and asked, "But, do you think we did it?"
"How would we even know we did it?" Jaune asked, and Pyrrha shrugged.
"Let's just see if it sticks," Pyrrha suggested.
"Could work," Jaune said and picked up the structure. He brought the dark red dodecahedron to the armory in his castle and tried to hold it to the wall. It took several attempts in different locations, but it eventually sunk into the wall, leaving an image of a whirlwind of rose petals in the light gray stone. He and Pyrrha both touched the emblem.
"The rose of dreams blossoming in full glory," a gentle, yet determined, female voice said, echoing through the air. Both Jaune and Pyrrha looked at each other, their emotionless faces slowly turning to joy as they realized they had just created an entirely new semblance, just by working off of another one.
Author's note: Impromptu spear training.
Also, when I came up with Hellscape, I had no idea how that should be dealt with, safe for a lot of firepower.
The line Sirena used to sum up what Nora told Clover is a quote from someone famous, but I forgot who said it. It was also said by a character in the anime Upotte!, which is kinda like RWBY, except every waifu is also a gun, and there are no monsters. Also, it's really horny, so watch at your own risk. It had a lot of potential for a fun slice of life story about a human teacher learning to cope with every single one of his students being a deadly weapon, but nope.
If there are still Adam fanboys out there who want to whine about wasted potential, that show actually wasted its potential, rather than just not following the fanon interpretation of a character.
I did actually look up which color you get when you combine blue and pink when it came time to have Surge use Nora's maiden powers.
Those spectral heads are based on Braggu from The Dark Eye, but you can just imagine them as 3-eyed, hyper-realistic Gastly if you want. Or you could look it up on Google Images. The game's German title is Das Schwarze Auge.
Sun can make a lot of clones now.
Lastly, the semblance that Jaune and Pyrrha created. It's called Rose Tourbillon, and based on the attack of the same name from Go! Princess Precure. The phrase is a little reference to its user in the anime, Cure Flora, the princess of flowers. Specifically the slightly modified version of her introduction after she regained her dream: "The princess of flowers blossoming in full glory, Cure Flora!"
Great scene, awesome fight, nice use of combat skirt decency protection technology, and definite chills even a year after I watched that.
Out of all the anime I saw so far, Go! Princess Precure is the closest to RWBY in terms of plot points, character relations, and some other stuff. Both Cure Flora and Ruby start off with dreams beyond their skill, so to speak, and aren't taken seriously by their peers. The first addition to their respective teams, Cure Mermaid and Weiss, is the heiress to an international company, but loses the title eventually, but not before realizing that she didn't need that anyway.
Twilight and Cinder are both powerful fire-users who started out as little girls that fell into despair and joined the main villain, Dyspear and Salem, under false promises. Heck, the main villains even look and act alike.
Then there is that one time a member of the main cast runs into her controlling male acquaintance, the beautiful blonde with mommy issues, the evil henchman who literally refuses to die because they hate the main character so much...