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VOLUME II
Still, I have no reason to fundamentally change the course of a volume, so let me keep it the same. There's actually not that much to change anyway, I just made it longer. Weirdly enough the second volume of our incredibly popular series does not start with our main characters, but people we know nothing about. This setup will be the justification for all that happens in volume II.
We accompany two new characters, Emerald and Mercury, as they walk through the streets and banter a little bit. Their clothes are awfully casual — you wouldn't think they are warriors. The two discuss this job they are about to do, a job that deeply bothers Emerald, but not Mercury. "We killed people before to survive. How is doing it for money any different?" he says. And besides, they need that money. Like, REALLY need it. In the end Mercury volunteers to do it all on his own, while she stays outside and covers for them. Their destination was a bookstore, where Mercury meets the owner, Tuxson. They were all alone, and the vibe is ominous. Tuxson talks like a jerk, trying really hard to make Mercury leave since they are already closed. The conversation is brief, as Mercury makes it all too obvious why he is here. It seems this humble librarian has made some people angry — powerful people, that is. Tuxson is clearly confused why they would send a human to confront him, but he did expected something like this would happen eventually. He doesn't intend to go down without a fight. Tuxson jumps towards Mercury, who remains with a blank expression. Just as his fist is about to make contact, we cut to black.
Then we play the opening I guess.
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After that, we follow the perspective of team RWBY. It seems they are describing some insane plan to attack an incoming army of Grimm that is surrounding the castle. In the end they fail, and all die one by one. However, we cut back and realized they were playing a board game all along. Just then Glynda appears, hitting Ruby at the back of the head with her wand. She failed. Next time she needs to think before acting.
They were in combat training, and the goal was to make a strategy to escape a hopeless situation using a board game. In the end Jaune and Dove were capable of making good strategies for their teams — team RWBY was the only one to fail. The girls all blame each other but mostly Blake, for not making a single input into the conversation as usual. It has been months together at this point, but they can count with their fingers on how many times Blake spoke up. The conversation carries on all the way to lunch, with Blake still not talking back to them. Eventually someone pulls out their phone and they start seeing the news of a homicide that happens in Vale City that same morning. The victim was a Faunus owner of a bookshop, and by the clues it must have been a targeted attack in broad daylight. Upon hearing those news, Blake shows emotion for the first time in the series, a face of subtle shock. Tuxson's bookshop is where she bought the spicy novel she is currently reading. From the way her face slowly turns to frown, we get the feeling that sparks will fly.
That night, we see Blake wait for her teammates to sleep. Once it gets quiet and Yang starts to snore, she dresses up, grabs her sword, and leaves the castle by jumping through the window.
Next we follow a near wordless section, as Blake infiltrates the city through the rooftops, arrives at Tuxson's bookstore, and sneaks by the police investigation watch. Here is where we see Blake's shadow abilities truly shine, and how useful they can be in any situation that is not direct-combat related. The two most important are the ability to see through her shadow, and interact flimsily with the real world with it. She commands her shadow to go inside the backdoor's keyhole, and she uses it to silently lock pick with her mind. She enters the bookstore, now with blood on the walls and clear destruction. From her small investigation she is able to conclude one thing — the level of destruction implies that the culprit was a Huntsman.
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We cut to team RWBY's perspective that morning, noticing that Blake is gone. They went to class expecting to see her, but she was truly nowhere to be seen. Professor Port finds that strange, and something has to be done about it. Blake was team RWBY's responsibility — their new mission is to find her by tomorrow morning, and so the girls are allowed to search the castle. However, a tip from Jaune helped them figure out what happened.
He was on his way to nightly solo training, when he heard sounds coming from team RWBY's room. He looked through the keyhole (with absolutely, 100% no ulterior motives), but suddenly Blake opened the door and told him to leave. She was all geared up, and when questioned about it, she simply shut the door on his face. He tried to follow her outside, but she was fast — he only got a glimpse from the window of her exiting the castle wall towards the city. Team RWBY has to go after.
The girls manage to track down Blake and confront her about her actions. They figured she was upset about the killing that happened that morning, since it was her favorite bookstore and all. Weiss demands an explanation while Blake continues to reply with "you wouldn't understand," and such. Eventually push comes to shove, and Blake is forced to make a decision. She wants them to leave her alone — that's all she ever wanted so far. She might know the way to do it. Out of nowhere she begins untying her iconic black bow, and pulls it out. She looks back at her team now, revealing her ears for the first time.
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The reveal leaves the other three speechless. Blake then pulls her hair to the side, revealing that she never had human ears this whole time (her cat ears are considerably bigger in this version, extending from the sides of her head all the way to the top). After admitting that, they must understand why she wants to find the killer. Faunus are her people, and she can't allow a murderer of her people to walk freely in the streets. In her mind, Blake expected her team to be so repulsed and angry that they would leave her alone. However… it wasn't the case. Ruby and Yang's eyes suddenly lighten up. In fact, they were so excited to discover it that they couldn't put it into words.
Faunus are not common in Vale city itself. For people without bias like Ruby and Yang, Faunus are simply the coolest thing. You're saying Blake is partially a black cat with super abilities? Hell yeah! For them that makes their team even better. Above all, they were glad that Blake finally told them something about her. Blake was genuinely surprised by their reaction, but then she looked at Weiss. She reacted more so how Blake expected — she felt a bit of outrage. She turned away and asked why Blake kept this a secret for so long, which is a logical thing to ask. Blake explains that she didn't think she was capable of fitting in if they knew her true self. And so Ruby gives her the protagonist speech — how the difference doesn't matter, they are a team, but they also need to be friends and blah blah blah, the same thing we heard several times in every other show of the modern age. We can clearly see something change on Blake's mind in real time as she hears Ruby's words. Finally she understood that something she believes might be wrong. At this point it feels like Blake was just afraid of not being accepted by the others, but it's not really just that, is it?
Finally the girls understand why Blake is so upset about this murder — she wants to find out who did it and why, and the only way to find out is with Detective Braun. He found a witness from the streets and has noted down what she said in his small handbook. They need to steal the page, and find out who was the killer. Ruby and Yang agree to the plan, but not Weiss. To her they were talking crazy — they are Huntresses, not vigilantes. What they are going to do is a crime and Weiss won't stand for it, so she leaves.
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The episode follows as the other three formulate a small plan to distract Braun and steal the page from his notepad. Ruby and Yang serve as distractions while Blake gets the thing. But since that's not action-packed enough, another wrench is thrown into their plan. Turns out they are not the only ones wanting to find out who did killed Tuxson.
Blake's plan is interrupted when White Fang spies in hoods also enter Braun's office at the same time as her. They are not up for a talk, and threaten her for the notepad. Unfortunately they end up causing a commotion, and Braun arrives at the scene. Everyone runs away, and Braun decides to chase Blake through the rooftops with deadly intent (not recognizing her in a bandit mask). As the first real action sequence of the volume, again, this chase needs to be well made. Now both Braun and the hooded spies are after Blake, but Ruby and Yang manage to fight off the ladder and send them running away.
It seemed like Blake wasn't going to shake off Braun, but then Weiss makes an epic comeback to help at the end. She kinda realized that, with her team in jail, she is a goner too. She tricks Braun with by hiring a fake witness and also buying an escape van for all of them. She is rich as fuck, we gotta use that quality somehow. Blake left the notepad behind and simply took the single page testimony she needed. Braun is left with the impression that all those ninjas were part of the same crew, and he should probably start investigating them.
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With the girls sitting safely at the back of the van, they look at the witness testimony and find out that the culprits were actually two people. A man and a woman, who are both under suspicion of being enhanced by Auras. The woman actually used some sort of Semblance ability on the witness that made her see things that weren't there — to try and hide the fight happening inside the bookstore. With that, they figure it must be Roman Torchwick and that girl who rescued him that night on the docks. That is as much they could gather for now, they needed to return to the castle before dark.
Once they had to explain themselves before Ozpin, Blake went ahead and took all the blame. She states the reasons why she disappeared, and Ozpin understood her point of view and motivations. After all, it's only natural that the strong and heroic feel compelled to step in, even when it does not concern them. But Ozpin sends them away with a warning. If they are going to help someone, they have to do it with responsibility. They can't allow themselves to go on the same path as those they judge to be enemies. Sometimes it is better to accept their mistakes than to become a hypocrite. After that they can leave.
We cut to the next day, where it seems Blake ultimately decided to keep the black bow off for good. Suddenly all her peers surround her from all sides, asking a lot of cat related questions that she isn't answering. Eventually she gets too annoyed, calls them all stupid humans, and then flees through the high window. The episode would end there, but there is one last scene to set up the villains.
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We cut to a dark and featureless room, where a freaking HUGE guy, dressed in black and white, bows before a throne with a woman in it. The woman is covered in shadows, but her silhouette and bright yellow eyes makes it clear that she's the same one we saw at the post credits of Volume I. The big guy says that Faunus' blood was shed — Tuxson was working for the White Fang for years, so his assassination was no mere coincidence. Whoever did this, they wanted to send a message. First that night on the docks where they got scammed, and now the execution out of their people. Vale City cannot go unpunished. However, the "queen" denies his plan of revenge. They can profit off this attack in different ways, and she rather not solve anything with violence while she can. The man, clearly disgruntled, leaves the throne room. And so the episode ends.
Commentary (spoilers): Just like in volume I, we dedicate the first episode to building up our villain for the volume — this time being the White Fang. Since we don't have as much worldbuilding and characters to worry about, we can focus on developing the villain much more than we did previously. The only difference however is that the White Fang aligned too much with the average mustache twirling villain, while Roman had enough personality and mannerisms to give him depth, despite only appearing in the first and last episode. They will be more constant, the end climax will be much more exciting, but don't expect them to be "good" villains. Concerning cat Blake, I decided to keep it a secret till volume II, since I decided to make Torchwick the sole villain of volume I, and now the White Fang will be the sole villain of volume II, and Blake being a Faunus will have a point. The storyboarding team can have a fun day filling the previous volume with background foreshadowing, commonly her bow twitching as she hears a sound. Also, small issue, but the volume 2 outfits for team RWBY are some of the best we see in the entire series, it's a shame we never saw them again. However, giving them new clothes every volume might not be a good idea since the characters need this iconic, long-lasting design that every Shounen anime has. I'm gonna wait for the time skip to change their clothes; for now we can stick to very small changes in design, such as new colors.
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Now, it's time to introduce monkey boy.
The episode would start with everyone going to class, when suddenly they would be harassed by this nonchalant guy, who just showed up out of nowhere. He would simply appear anywhere, cause trouble, pull pranks or embarrass someone, and then he disappears. First team JNPR, then CRDL, CFVY, and even the teachers. He seemed to be much interested in the castle, citing it as way cooler than the place he was previously in.
Eventually he comes across team RWBY at the library. He is immediately charmed by Blake's looks, and pulls all of his game to try and fluster her… only to fail miserably, as her face remains completely apathetic. Eventually all the people he annoyed throughout the day come back to get him, and so a chase scene with parkour all over the castle begins. Once they manage to trap him in a corner it was time to fight, and it seems like this guy is WAY more skilled than any of the new students had thought. He could fight more than well with his nunchucks that turn into a staff, and also he could use his tail as a third arm. Cardin, Nora and Yang attack him all at once, but they can't seem to get a single good hit in. The fight only stops once Ozpin arrives. The monkey boy challenges him to fight as well, but he gets defeated instantly, and falls on his ass with a cane to his neck. Finally they are able to interrogate him.
The monkey boy finally introduces himself as Sun Wukong. He was coursing the Huntsman training at Shade academy in Haven, when he heard about this one, and decided to come check it out. He liked it way more than Shade, especially since there is no old man screaming in his ear all day, and there's a whole battalion of cute girls. He asks Ozpin to let him stay, and against everyone's better judgment, Ozpin allows it — because screw it. He tells the boy that if he disrupts any other classes, he's out. With that, Sun becomes an exchange student, and the episode ends.
Commentary (spoilers): Sun is a fan favorite character, so his introduction is a must and it needs to happen early. I want to keep it on the same note as his introduction in the original, showing him to be an overconfident dumbass that blatantly disregards the rules. He's going to appear all over the damn volume because that's the essence of his character; he just shows up uninvited whenever there's action. He's another one that I never plan to change, since just like Ruby and Jaune, he has that protagonist energy to him, and probably deserves a spinoff if I'm being honest.
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Another episode would involve the return of Oscar.
It begins with him transporting his farm goods to the city with his caravan, when suddenly he was hassled by a team of Huntsmen wearing the same type of white mask. They demanded payment for clearing this route of Grimm before he arrived, and they also took some of his food as a freebie. This happened a couple of times, but Oscar didn't realize there was something off. If anything, he was scared at the thought of having so many Grimm right next to his farm, every day. And so he called Ruby and told her about it. She didn't see any problem with it, and told him to relax. But eventually she spoke to Jaune, and he revealed that they can't do that — it's illegal in the Huntsmen law to ask money from bystanders. Besides, there is no way that Grimm are covering a route so close to Vale City every day — those guys are just scamming Oscar. Ruby thanks Jaune for his help, and here we have a little setup way later, where Ruby promises to always call him first whenever she's in trouble since he's so smart.
Ruby talks with Oscar and essentially forces him to make a D-rank mission at the guild, so then Ruby can take it, come along, and shoo away these impostors. I decided to give Ruby this solo episode so then she can play off Oscar better, without anyone to interrupt her. The following road trip is entirely comedic — Ruby was excited at first, but it soon showed to be slow and monotonous. These two come from such completely different worlds that they can't really talk about anything — Oscar thinks her life is scary, and she thinks his life is boring. But it's here in their conversation that we get one of the first moments of true maturity from Ruby, as she gives out a lesson that her uncle taught her about fear. She explained how there is no true way to get rid of fear. The best you can do is control it, and shape it to your advantage. Whenever Ruby gets a little afraid of the size of the Grimm she faces, she instead becomes afraid of what it can do to people — how it will destroy the things she loves, like her friends, or her favorite ice cream parlor. That greater fear motivates her to fight no matter how scary the enemies are. She needs to remember what she truly fears above all else. That is a very nice lesson for Oscar, and also the audience I guess.
Eventually they meet with the fake Huntsmen, and Ruby goes to confront them. They were fake, but only in the sense of title. Once they realized Ruby was onto them, they attack, and we can see that they are indeed super powered. However, there was something wrong with them. Ruby feels that their Auras are weird and damaged, and that's why they lack the same amount of power as a normal Huntsman. They refuse to answer who they are — their plan was to simply extort funds from dumb passing travelers. They claim no allegiance to anyone, but by the fact these four are all Faunus with small animal traits, it is pretty clear to the audience who they are. After a fight in the woods, three manage to escape while Ruby captures one. She got pretty banged up, but won.
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She hands the fake Huntsman over to Braun back in the city. The detective explains that this is not the only time this has happened. A bunch of these assholes have stolen maybe dozens of thousands of Lien doing this scheme all over the countryside, and they always disappeared before he arrived for a talk. This grunt is the first guy they got. Braun thanks Ruby for the service, and then yells at her to go back to school and stop meddling with his job.
Later, Oscar thanks Ruby and gives her a small gift for helping him. It was just a pendant made of wood, carved in the shape of a bird that Oscar made by hand. It wasn't much but Ruby found it adorable, and this moment truly consolidates their strong but distant friendship, and maybe something else way down the line. The episode ends with Ruby being welcomed back to RWBY HQ by the other three, who speculate among themselves all day that maybe she spent the whole saturday with a boyfriend — she even got a cute gift. Weiss is curious about what happened, Blake says it's not their business, Yang angrily denies the idea of Ruby having a boyfriend, while Ruby gets all embarrassed.
Commentary (spoilers): Again, another episode to build up the ongoing White Fang plot, and also a bit of Oscar. I also wanted it like this to give Ruby some alone time, since we rarely got any chance to do that. Despite her youthful silliness, Ruby does have a lot of maturity that comes from her tough training. Though they are the same age, she is much more adult than Oscar, and more adult than what other people give her credit for.
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This is an extra episode idea I talked about. Not relevant to the plot, but I like the idea. Skip it if you will.
Team CFVY is always out of the castle since they are academy veterans, and are allowed missions in the wild to be tutored on all sorts of operations. When they return it's always a blast, because the other students respect them a lot. This time during lunch, Ruby and everyone else wanted to know what their last mission was about. The mission was incredibly boring, but since their juniors are so excited to hear it, Coco proceeds to completely fabricate their mission, adding a ton of details that don't matter in an attempt to make it look cooler than it was. This episode is supposed to be way more artistically driven than the others, as all four members give their accounts of the mission differently — what in turn makes the visuals different.
In Coco's account, Everyone is drawn in much more exaggerated detail, always posing cool and with striking shadows everywhere — kinda like JoJo. She tells the story with so much drama that a pebble mysteriously falling takes two paragraphs worth of story.
In Velvet's account, everything turns into a cute cartoony/chibi design, with the scenario and characters being made of crayons. She dumbs down all that happened and gets easily sidetracked by things she found cute in the forest.
On Fox's account, everything turns into an edgy abstract Noir style. Fox is blind, so all the characters turn into an idea of what that person looks like. He sees Velvet as a cute little bunny, Coco as a chopstick with shades and a beret, and Yatsu as a huge boulder with a simple face drawn in it. All the scenery and colors are abstract as well, and Fox only envisions himself as looking like a normal human. He tells the story as if there are darker interpretations to everything, and lots of unreasonable moments of violence, like he's a detective in a suspense flick.
As for Yatsuhashi, he just tells everything as it truly was, serving as a comedic contrast to the other three's inventions. Basically they went to check a cave for elder Grimm, they waited three days outside, nothing happened, so they came back. Once he reveals that, everyone just left annoyed for having wasted one hour on a fake story.
Commentary (spoilers): Nothing characterizes a character quite like seeing a story through their lens. It's almost baffling to not use this idea for more important characters, but I really like this episode. Most of it doesn't even need to be fully animated in 3d; we can get creative. By now all of team CFVY will have their whole characters known perfectly, except only their backstories. One of the few episodes without any action; just pure character and comedy.
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Next episode is a long time coming. I need both for build up and for fun. It's a very important episode but it can easily disguise itself as filler, and the character focus goes mostly to Pyrrha and Blake. The story starts with Yang noticing dark circles in Blake's eyes, and eventually they figure that she's been going into the night to find Roman and her girlfriend, even though she shouldn't. This search for the Faunus killer was eating Blake from the inside out, and no matter what they tried, Blake simply wouldn't quit. They didn't know how to stop her from going into the night, but they found a way to change her plans.
Ruby manages to organize a girl's night out in the town to occupy Blake, and give her time to relax. Team RWBY is joined by Coco, Velvet and Nora, who manage to drag Pyrrha into it, despite her desire to stay away from social situations. The story follows the eight as they go through the night doing simply cool as shit like any teenager with super powers would (maybe even a few fun crimes as well). Each of the girls tried to use their own character-specific method to please Blake and Pyrrha and make them open up. Pyrrha had built a deep anxiety her entire life, but once pushed in a situation like this, for the first time she began to appreciate it. Slowly but surely, throughout the episode she'll become ever less scared, until she starts making choices for herself.
Eventually they come down to an arcade in the city, where she quickly develops a great fondness and demonstrates insane skills in DDR (huge foreshadowing for later in the volume).
As for Blake, they tried hard but it seems like she would be more happy by going along with her mission. One very important thing that happens is her eventual talk with Velvet, who is also a Faunus, but way less subtle than Blake is (having animal features that she can't hide). Blake questions her if she can feel the stares from people — judging her, marking her, wanting her to leave, calling her a freak behind her back. The way Blake speaks sets off this very clear hatred she has. She repeats that same evil speech from that the villains said in first episode, as if she heard it herself hundreds of times. To her, this whole idea of hanging around with humans seemed wrong and pointless. They were not meant to be together.
Velvet's response is simple and obvious, which Blake stragely wasn't prepared for. Though there are bad people that don't like her for being a rabbit lady, everyone has differences that others don't like. Humans hate other humans for the dumbest things. Everyone ends up different, and wanting everyone to do as you please or like you automatically sounds so silly when said out loud. Velvet sees her life without considering herself different. She doesn't see herself as a Faunus — she is a person just like everyone else. Velvet knows that for every person who doesn't like her legs or ears, there's also people like Coco or Ruby who like her even more because of those things. After all, she learned to be happy the way things are.
This advice also will grow and fester on Blake's character arc, but for now Blake can't understand how she sees the world in such an oblivious light.
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I don't have any other fun idea for this episode, other than Sun spying on the girls like a perv, until he gets found out and beaten to a pulp. The episode has a conflict though. At the beginning, Weiss planned to eat at a fancy new restaurant that opened up. The owner lady didn't allow them in, since they had two dumb Faunus girls with them, so the girls called off the old hag and went away.
Now, at the end of the episode, we return to that place only to discover that it has been set on fire. The culprits, who by the dressing code are quite obviously White Fang, were caught by the girls red handed. They flee while the girls get together to save as many people as they can from inside the burning building. Soon Blake was the only one left inside, and while she saved the human people, the rooftop was about to come crashing down. Pyrha, Ruby and Weiss run back inside as Yang holds the entrance up. Blake was in a bind among the flames with innocents behind her. Pyrrha kept looking around as the room collapsed, and a clear, violent conflict started taking over her mind. In the end she had to act.
Pyrrha raises her hand, and uses a strange ability that we don't fully understand to hold the ceiling together, giving enough time for Blake to leave. With everyone safe, Pyrrha cuts her power and the entire place collapses. At the end, Ruby, Weiss and Blake stare at her in confusion and awe, but she begs them to forget what they just saw. She immediately reverted back to her small and anxious self just from seeing their eyes. She turned her back to them and ran away in fear. Whatever it is they saw, Pyrrha really, REALLY didn't want them to know.
The episode ends as the firefighters arrive, and the girls are applauded for their efforts. In the end, the racist owner lady doesn't fully accept Faunus, but she has to acknowledge that some of them are not as bad as the others. She only hopes Blake and Velvet don't meddle with people like those, who so calmly endanger people's lives. With that, the episode ends.
Commentary (spoilers): This is another light-hearted episode; we have a lot of them in the beginning. It also it is the first ever showing of Pyrrha's power, since we removed her participation from the "Jaudice" ending. This episode carries a lot of buildups for future events, namely the White Fang getting even more violent as time goes on. I still have two more things to conclude before the 3-part finale begins, so let's get to it.
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This episode concludes the Sun section of volume II.
It begins by a sudden arrival that was announced throughout the castle by Miss Lucy. The headmaster of Shade academy has arrived, along with one professor and one student. Now we are introduced to three new characters; Leo, Corazan and Aslan. The three have come with the express purpose of retrieving their stupid dumbass meathead (Sun) back home. The episode starts with Aslan chasing and then fighting Sun, knocking him down silly and using some kind of electrical power to keep him down with his mouth shut. From their first interaction we can get a good grasp of her bossy attitude that contrasts heavily with Sun's relaxed nature. Though every student gets to introduce themselves to each other, this episode doesn't really focus on them interacting that much — it's really about Leo and Ozpin.
Their dialogue needs to be very well crafted to convey this rivalry that both have, despite only Leo acknowledging it. Leo's interactions with his students are also important, since he's the opposite of Ozpin even in that. He holds a very close, even family-like relationship with Sun and Aslan, and is not afraid to literally hit Sun in the head for running away, or yell at Aslan for being rude. Where Ozpin is mature and professional, Leo is childish and passionate. Here we also see Glynda interact with Corazan for the first time, and he's the only person she doesn't act mean towards. She's even soft spoken to him, which surprises the students. Those two just have the exact same vibe — both being incredibly done with everyone else's shit, and knowing they live very similar, tiring routines. Somehow he even manages to convince Glynda to smoke a cigarrete with him. She would probably like him more if he didn't try to ask her hand in marriage literally every scene they are in.
The crux of the episode comes right in the beginning. Leo is baffled and envious of how many students Ozpin received that year in comparison to Leo, mentioning that he only got three, and one didn't want to come along this trip. In their endless rivalry, Leo suggests a few tests to prove who had the best students, and therefore best academy. They develop a few trials, first starting off as simply with who kills Grimm more efficiently, but eventually divulges into stupid stuff like who's students can remain quiet for longer, or who has the best cook. Leo was truly making up everything he could to win this little challenge. His two students fought bravely, and in the end the two academies were tied. They had to find a way to earn the decisive point and claim victory.
At that moment, Leo challenges Ozpin to a battle, in order to determine which academy has the strongest headmaster. Suddenly the hype goes through the roof as Ozpin accepts it.
The entire castle suddenly stops all that they are doing in order to go and watch the match outside the gates. The students have their eyes almost bulge out of their heads, as these two legends begin taking off their fancy attires and get ready to rumble. Leo takes off all his shogun armor to reveal his basic baggy pants and bare chest, and Ozpin takes off his green blazer and glasses to reveal his shocking purple shirt with suspender underneath. They get into positions. The wind rushes around them. Their Auras start to flare up. Electricity was sparking between their eyes. It felt like they were about to explode.
However, as the hype builds up to the utmost limit… Ozpin suddenly has a second thought and gives up on the spot. Everyone falls down on their face — that classic anime gag. Ozpin figures that a battle between the two would destroy the entire castle before it was even halfway done, so he concedes the win to Leo in order to avoid that. Leo doesn't even mind, he takes the W with all his heart, announcing to all Huntsmen in the castle that Shade academy was superior by forfeit.
The episode ends with Leo, Aslan, Corazan and Sun (tied up) returning home. Sun shoots his shot at Blake for the last time, and now… she decides to throw him a bone by actually replying with a "no" instead of annoyed silence. He felt satisfied with that. Before they leave, both Ozpin and Leo acknowledge that their funds have been down recently, so he puts forward the idea to hold a Vytal Tournament festival in the future. It has been far too long since the last one, and Ozpin agrees. With the Shade academy group going back home by running at super speed, the episode ends.
Commentary (spoilers): This might be one of my favorite episodes thus far. It tells so much about the universe and setting, but carefully disguising it as a mini-tournament episode. Just now we established a whole other nation — naturally Haven was probably spoken a few times now, especially in minisodes, but here the main characters from there make a true appearance. There's only one more to go, and he's a special case. If you saw the character section of the second chapter, you'll know what I mean. Now we only have the Blake revenge plot and the White Fang plot to worry about. Let's move onto the next.
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Time to cap off the chase for the killers plot.
The story starts with Blake going in another night to search for Roman's whereabouts, but is surprised to find the man himself, waiting for her in a dark alleyway of the city.
Though she draws her sword, Roman isn't there to fight. He refers to Blake as the mole girl, but upon further inspection, she's actually a kitty. Word around the bushes is that she's looking for him, thinking he killed the Faunus guy from the White Fang. It wasn't the case, and so Roman shows her photographic proof of the true culprit. The picture shows Mercury and Emerald out on the streets, with a small but clear blood stain present in Mercury's heel as he kicked Tuxson to death. Roman reveals that these two are new in town — they arrived that same day of the murder, and have been in hiding ever since. Two rogue assassins are not allowed in HIS city, something that Blake can agree on. He expects her to serve some justice, and walks away. Before Blake can slash him, he disappears in the same way he did that night, shattering into glass.
This is the first time Roman ever helped team RWBY, and it's pretty smart too. By simply helping Blake, he found a way to make them kill each other without the need of stepping in. She easily fell for it, after all this is what she wanted. The back of the photo that Roman left had an address of their recent whereabouts. Besides revenge, now Blake understands something that Roman foreshadowed. They were assassins, which means someone even higher ordered the death of Tuxson. But who?
Blake comes to her team with the news. She's going after them, and not even with force they will be able to stop her. Ruby is convinced to make this a team effort and capture the two murderers, probably boosting their careers by doing so. It has to be made clear how Ruby is still trying to chase that high she got when Braun and Ozpin first praised her, even if it is misguided. The other two tag along because Yang really doesn't care about breaking rules either, and Weiss is adamant about closing this chapter so then Blake can stop risking their expulsion.
The episode that follows is about team RWBY gathering information about their targets, until they find out Emerald and Mercury had left the city that very day. The girls bust their attempt at escaping Vale City — without the time to wait for Braun, they are forced to engage before they dipped. Mercury and Emerald are surprised by them, and at first try to run away before being cornered. The encounter happens in the woods, not too far off the city walls. Here we get to see Mercury shine, something we weren't allowed to see in the first episode. Single Handedly, without even a Semblance or weapon, he defeats everything that the girls throw his way. Even Emerald, who is not that strong in comparison, can pretty much wipe the floor with Weiss by using her broken ass semblance, which crafts a perfect fake reality by messing up with the opponents five senses.
Team RWBY fights like hell but they can't beat people with twice as much experience than they have. We can go so far as to let the girls bleed a bit from their bruises to show how poorly they performed this time. Braun appears out of nowhere, fighting off Mercury before he delivers a serious hit to the girls. Mercury prepares for round two, but this time Emerald stops him. She tells him that these kids don't deserve to get hurt, and convinces him to let go. Before escaping, the two give off a final clue to solve this old case. They were paid to eliminate "a traitor", they held no grudge against the Faunus.
...
Braun took the girls back to the castle and into the infirmary to get them treated. They wake up to see him menacingly watching over them with his arms crossed. He was mad. This time they almost got fucking killed by renegades in their reckless adventures, so he had to talk with Ozpin. Due to Blake's shenanigans, team RWBY had lost their off-school privileges for the next year — essentially being forced to stay on the castle on their time off. It wasn't a complete loss, because in the end, that final clue finally rang a bell to Blake. Those two were hired to kill "a traitor", but that can only mean that the White Fang itself ordered the hit. The girls wondered why they would kill their own friend and then go on the news to complain about it. Weiss figured why, it was all a ploy to get political power. In the end, Blake was left more puzzled than she ever was. Something wrong had happened with the White Fang.
The episode concludes as we see Blake disappear away from her friends, and into a secluded place of the castle rooftops. We see her making a phone call, but before it gets answered, the episode ends.
Commentary (spoilers): Honestly I just wanted to make a conclusion of this subplot, plus I needed to close off on Mercury and Emerald. They are not that deep, but we can get a better grasp of them here — how Emerald essentially works as his voice of reason and is not completely evil as to kill little girls. I had a realization while writing the ending though. I was gonna make Braun let the girls walk away scot-free, but then I realized this is what a lesser writer would do. Basically we're done adventuring to the city; they won't have a reason to go out anyway in the next volume. Adding this basic consequence essentially humanizes the characters even more and makes the world seem actually serious. Ruby wanted to do dangerous things, she got wrecked, and thus she was punished. At this point team RWBY escaped so much of their school life that they needed something to pull back. Basically this episode is mostly about a cool fight scene in the woods, team RWBY first decisive defeat, and the first moment where Blake was put at odds against the White Fang, of which so far she was so adamant about defending. Anyway, everything concludes with the next three-part finale.
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But first, a little word about the Minisodes.
Again, this volume should follow the same note as the previous one, except we now have the luxury of new characters and new concepts. One of my favorite ideas for minisode is the rest of team RWBY trying to figure out how much of a cat Blake is, by doing all this stupid crap that annoys her, but eventually they do find out she loves fish. We also need a few minisodes for team JNPR and team CRDL in general since they barely appear here. I'm even looking forward to having minisodes about Roman, and some about Emerald and Mercury, since they still have a big part to play in the following volumes. Also, we introduced Sun this season, so we have to feature him in a lot of these. The three-part finale will involve all teachers going out into the wild with the students, so it would be fun to get a perspective on what they were doing as well. My only personal must is a Minisode about Weiss's birthday, turning her 17. We don't need to do nearly as much worldbuilding, so we can focus straight on comedy skits.
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Throughout the entire volume (though I didn't mention) we were fed with new scenes of that same big guy from the White Fang, who we come to know as Commander Saw, or simply Bane. Every time team RWBY, or anyone else thwarted one of their plans through the course of the volume, we get another scene of him getting mad, and having his increasingly violent demands being rejected by the White Fang queen, who we get to know as Sienna Kahn. We also get a scene of her, using her silver tongue in a late night meeting of all Faunus residences in Vale City. She used the recent happenings to the Faunus race as ammunition to convince Faunus to join the ranks as either sympathizers or straight up soldiers. She even made connections to the public media, trying to get rick people to support their organization. Her end goal was to make the White Fang a new form of public security, recognized as representatives of their race, and an active police force exclusive to Faunus. That will give them the opportunity to make some real social change, and by social change… she means control over the richest city in the world. She managed to get a good word from the council of Vale, and she might have gotten what she wanted…
if not for what Bane did next.
The bastard was so mad at the humans in Vale that he decided to take straight bloody revenge on them. Here we finally learned why he has been so upset about Tuxson's death. It seems like Tuxson was either his great friend or brother — it's not made clear, but he does have a picture of the two smiling together in his phone, from back when two were White Fang members. In the end he decided to make a sadistic plan. He gathered a few of his most loyal men and began working on it. That's the last we see of him. Now back to Beacon.
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Another couple months had passed over the course of this volume. The kids still kept good grades and survived Glynda so far. Now it was time for another award, and so the students were upgraded from D to C-rank badges. With that they were capable of taking their first wild missions. Of course, not without proper tutoring. For their first scout through the wildlands, they would be accompanied by a teacher. Port went with JNPR, Glynda went with CRDL, and Oobleck went with RWBY. Their mission was to scout an area, camp in the wild, and come back the next morning.
The beginning of the episode showcases a lot of small points in worldbuilding. Oobleck explains to the girls why the scouting missions exist — not to just kill Grimm who are getting close to the city or blocking passing routes, but to prevent them from aging and getting stronger. Eventually the girls arrive at the point they were supposed to scout; the ancient destroyed ruins of Glenn. Once the strongest city of the strongest kingdom in the world, but it was the first to fall when Grimm invaded centuries ago.
(Personally I don't want the design to look like a modern city, considering that Grimm invaded when they were at a Feudal-like age. In RE:colored is just a very big and destroyed old city; think of Shiganshina from AOT to give a visual.)
Here we see first hand how devastating Grimm can be. So far we only saw three elder Grimm — the Fenrir, the Nevermore and the Deathstalker. All other Grimm the girls fought were young and stupid creatures, meant for training. This is the first showing of their true powers, not in skill or intelligence, but in sheer, unimaginable numbers. The scene where the girls track through the disheveled and abandoned streets of this ruined city, seeing remnants of the past, is a really dark scene for such a light-hearted volume — made even worse by Oobleck explaining how fucked up it was, and how many people might have died in just a single day. He's been so uncharacteristically mean that it looks like he's actively trying to traumatize the girls.
That would be enough on its own, but here in RWBY RE:colored we follow the rule of "fight don't show", so to compliment the destruction, the girls come face to face with the Grimm dwelling in the city.
All of them are elders, and all are really fucking big. Twice as big as any other we saw in the past, to put into perspective. Oobleck wasn't expecting this many, but now they have to fight. This is the first instance since the Nevermore fight that we see the girls struggling to kill Grimm. They got stronger, but out here Grimm cannot be underestimated. It's a big action sequence used to show how much of a threat these things pose, immediately reestablishing them as the true antagonists of this universe. By the end, the girls managed to kill them all with the help of Oobleck, who was a surprisingly competent A-class fighter with his flamethrower spear thingy.
Afterwards, they are left exhausted and have a few minor wounds. Oobleck admits that they were a bit unlucky to find five elders in one place, but the girls managed to kill them with excellency. Here he reveals how this is an average day for Huntsmen on mission, and for the first time team RWBY experiences a bit of dread. This level of power is considered average? They would have to get much stronger until they can look at these things and take heart on their own. In all, despite all the bullshit with the White Fang from the entire volume, this is the moment where we are reminded of the real enemy. How much they can destroy; how ruthless they are; how long have they been doing it. These monsters are pure evil.
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Now, the most important moment of this episode comes at the very end. The girls cleansed the place of all Grimm, and now night rolled in. Ruby volunteered for the watch duty in case they are attacked at night, leaving the girls and Oobleck to sleep in the secluded room of an abandoned tower.
However… the girls didn't feel like sleeping.
Suddenly Blake became a little more active than usual. At first it seemed like she was just chatting to relieve stress, whining about how she never expected to fight enemies that are so strong, and maybe she shouldn't. But soon enough, she was actively trying to convince Yang and Weiss of the same. Maybe this life is too hard for them, and they should probably quit being Huntresses. This comes out of nowhere for Blake, but it will make sense once the audience understands her true motivations. In retrospect, this is her first slip.
Yang and Weiss angrily denies her suggestions, and are glad to explain why they can't quit. This is the moment where the character depth goes through the roof. Here is where we deeply know them for real.
Weiss begins by telling who her grandfather was. Nikolas Schnee was not just one of the strongest of all time, he was the guy who brought Huntsmen training to Atlas in the first place. The guy was like Ozpin times five. A great bulk of the strongest Huntsmen in that nation were trained by him, and everyone considered him the greatest hero of their nation. But even more than that, he was an amazing grandfather. His three grandkids deeply loved him, and they aspired to be like him — especially Weiss. But the one thing he confided in her alone is how Atlas had lost its way. Their conquest for power would one day explode if the wrong person ever took power, and he did not wish to have his grandchildren be burdened by the evil of war. Warriors like them were not meant to destroy one another. The true enemy of humanity is the Grimm, and it always will be. He told Weiss to one day leave to Beacon like Nikolas did in his youth, and so she would understand everything. The people she will be forced to face could just as easily have been her greatest friends.
Weiss took that to heart for the next several years, growing ever more against her own nation and family. In the end she broke all her bonds to be here, and she can't give up — there's nothing left for her back home. She wants to honor Nikolas, she wants to be great like he was, but she realizes that now she's not even close to that, either as a warrior or as a person. She needs to keep going. And besides… making friends with the girls wasn't so bad. She felt like she had a family again, a true family like hers once was.
All this time we figured that Weiss was a self-serving bitch, worried about her family's honor and legacy, when in reality it was the opposite. Her pledge was to her mother's side of the family, not her father's. If his empire of imperialistic douchebaggery is to continue, it certainly won't be by her hands.
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As for Yang, she had a little story to tell them.
Before Tai and their uncle Qrow began training them, nearly ten years ago, the two were just normal kids. But that all changed when their mom, Summer, had died in action. It wasn't something unthinkable for a Huntress like her, but still, Yang didn't believe it. She was young and stupid… thought it was all a prank. She was sure that their mother would come back if only they got into trouble. She would always come running to save them whenever they tried to sneak into the forest alone. And so Yang took Ruby in a little red cart to an adventure in the woods. They expected their mother would rescue them… but it wasn't the case.
They got lost, it was dark, cold, and Ruby was getting scared. Not only were they running aimlessly in the dark woods, they had one stroke of bad luck that night. A single lone Grimm had slipped through the scouted areas near the city. It attacked them, and the girls managed to hide under a tree's roots to survive. The creature was vicious and the tree was weak — the monster managed to sink its claws through, and slash little Ruby in the leg. The wound was so deep that she still has the scar to this day. Suddenly the monster was getting its head inside to try biting them, Ruby was crying in pain, and Yang froze in fear. They would've died… if it weren't for uncle Qrow.
That night he phoned home two times and figured something was wrong. Qrow made the mad dash and followed the cart wheel tracks all the way there. He was induced by such a blind drunk rage that he tore that Grimm to pieces with his bare hands, a scene that more or less traumatized the two girls for years. It was like seeing a demon tear a wolf to pieces and eat it.
For the rest of her life, even now, that night shaped Yang into who she is. The feeling of freezing up while her sister was dying — she couldn't bear to ever feel it again. Tai began training her from that day onward, as he quit his job as a Huntsman to be a full-time dad. Yang wants to get stronger, so then nothing bad could ever happen to someone she loves again. And to do that, she needs to find a way to get rid of all Grimm in this world. To kill all the evil there is out there, no matter how much she suffers in the process, even if it means she has to destroy each and every one of them with her fists.
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In the end, Blake completely failed at breaking their spirits or persuading them to give up. In fact, she only made them a bit more determined, and with a deeper understanding of one another. The only one left now was… Blake. When questioned why she wanted to become a Huntress, she gave the usual generic answer — "it's in the family" and blah blah blah. Once questioned further, she turned away and gave an ominous answer.
"I have someone… waiting for me…" she said.
And that's it, she slept right away. With that, the episode ends.
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The next episode picks up right that night, in a different perspective. Ruby was carefully taking aim at random objects in the distance through her sniper scope, when suddenly Oobleck surprised her. It was his turn to keep watch, so she could sleep now. She goes on to hide in the tower with the other girls… but then realizes she needs to pee. She goes to do the deed on a different abandoned building, but after leaving, she spots something shady in the distance.
There was a light source in the opening. She went to check it, and by sheer coincidence, she stumbled into the most messed up thing ever. In the middle of the night, a convoy was being prepared. There was some kind of hidden deposit within the ruined city that had several kegs of explosives inside. Some masked people were taking those barrels into the open, and loading them into the head of a this huge truck with several wagons. Some others were installing big sound boxes on the outside for some reason. By the masks and hoods, Ruby figured that those were more goons from the White Fang. Before she could see anything else about the evil plot, she was found.
They surrounded her and began attacking — though they were many, she was skilled and ready. She kicks their ass for a while, but her fun ends once Commander Saw shows up. He completely overpowered and outskilled Ruby, being a White Fang higher up who unlocked his own Aura through training. Not only that, but he was a Gorilla Faunus, having immense strength and furry arms after his sleeveless tunic. Ruby didn't stand a chance. In the end he knock her out with a bash to the skull, leaving blood trickling down her forehead as she lays on the floor. She was a liability, so they confiscated her scroll and weapon. They figured her team must be nearby, so they tie Ruby up with steel chains and toss her into some dark room where she wouldn't make any noise.
She wakes up a few hours later, dazed and restrained. By the small light coming from the crevasses above, she could tell it was already morning. Suddenly commander Saw enters the room with another goon behind him. He wastes no time punching Ruby in the face and stomach as she couldn't defend herself. Every time she tried to stand up, the guy knocked her down again. It's a violent scene but it doesn't have to be graphic or bloody. The commander demands to know where her team is, and naturally Ruby refuses to talk. The man was about to strangle Ruby to death, when suddenly they hear a commotion outside. The goon tells the commander to go proceed with the mission while he finishes her off. Just as the commander leaves and the goon pulls off a blade, we get a dramatic cut to black.
The were girls sleeping by the steaming campfire.
Oobleck suddenly shakes them awake, asking where Ruby was. He split away from her during late night and expected her to be here. They get really worried, and so they begin searching for her. It doesn't take long for them to spot the convoy that the White Fang built. They watched quietly from afar, but once they spotted Crescent Rose being left on the ground, they jumped in. Blake sneaks off to find Ruby while the other three directly confront the White Fang soldiers.
Back to Ruby's scene, Blake suddenly appears from the shadows and knocks out the goon who was about to kill her. Blake frees her and drags Ruby outside on her shoulder. Commander Saw witnessed his forces being attacked by Huntsmen, so he began with the plan immediately. A fog horn begins from the front of the convoy, and right after that it begins to move. All the White Fang soldiers jumped in, as team RWBY and Oobleck regrouped. Ruby explained the little she saw, saying that they planned an attack by ramming the convoy with a ton of explosives somewhere. Oobleck makes the call, and the girls jump in the train.
The convoy quickly picks up speed as it rushes down the green fields and forests, leaving the ruined city of Glenn atop the plateau. The girls struggle to get some footing atop the wagon. By the direction it's heading, the target can only be Vale City. But what is the point? This scrapped convoy will simply get there and be stopped by the city's walls even if it explodes. Just then, Commander Saw activates part two of his terrorist plan.
From the middle wagon, they activate the machine linked to the sound boxes they installed before. Suddenly the convoy starts making a shit load of noise — at first it's just a very loud buzzing, but then the buzzing starts to slowly morph with the soundtrack. The true evil part of the plan shows itself. From the forests, the holes, the caves, hiding in the big trees, and observing from afar. All Grimm in a five mile radius were alerted, and one by one they looked up and saw the noisy convoy rushing by. As it is their programming, they all jump into action and begin chasing it. The girls cover their ears, and soon turn back to see an army of Grimm following behind the "train". They closed in and began attacking the caboose that team RWBY was on. They had to plunge a hole through the roof and jump inside for their safety.
The White Fang's ultimate plan had unveiled itself. it was unfortunate, but Oobleck feared that hundreds of lives were just put on their hands. They had to take over the convoy, and stop it at all costs. Ruby was still injured and couldn't fight. Oobleck would stay on the rooftops and try to kill as many Grimm as he could, and then he told Blake, Weiss and Yang to rush ahead and stop the train. After what he saw today, he has full trust in their abilities, and advises them to not hold back even if their opponents are people. What they are trying to do makes them yet another monster who has to be stopped. "Expect lethal intentions!" Oobleck said, and so he jumped up through that hole in the ceiling, immediately fighting off a Nevermore who was clawing the wagon.
Ruby tries to go along, but Yang forces her down, telling her to believe in her team. She takes off her purple leg strap and wraps it around Ruby's bloody forehead. "Don't worry, Ruby. Big sis won't let anything bad happen. You can trust us." Yang said. With that, the girls draw their weapons and rush into the next wagon. At first it was all quiet, The White Fang soldiers were hiding. They strike all the same time, but fail to kill the girls by surprise. And thus begins the most expensive fight sequence of this volume — similar to the Nevermore fight of Volume I.
I have only three things to say about the scene. Number one, the buzzing from the convoy now was fully converted into butt rock. Number two, every individual inside the wagons is super powered and trained, so we can have a lot of creative fight ideas — not excluding walking and fighting around in the ceiling and walls, given the square corridor design of each room. The White fang are not as tough as someone who has their Aura naturally awakened, so it should take just a few hits to knock each of them down. And finally, this is rage mode Yang — with her red eyes and such. She was triggered by seeing Ruby all beaten and bloody, and she swore revenge. This is her first action scene, and it's also the first instance in which we are shown Yang's second Semblance, Burn. Weiss realizes her strength has increased while her Aura is diminishing, and suddenly Yang is fighting with a lot of brutality and a lack of mercy. At one instance she even tried to throw a White Fang soldier out the window to die by the Grimm, but Blake saves the goon's ass with her grappling hook and snaps some sense into Yang. We have no shortage of awesome corridor fights in other shows and movies, so we might as well draw some inspiration with either the camera work or choreography.
Eventually the girls arrive at the middle wagon and destroy the sound machine, but it doesn't make the Grimm stop following them. By the time they arrive at the last door, every single White Fang member they knocked out has gotten up again, and started to crowd them from behind. Yang and Weiss volunteer to hold them off while Blake goes to stop the convoy. One wagon away from the control room, she bumps into Commander Saw — or rather, now just Bane, considering he deserted the fang. He was holding his iconic chainsaw greatsword on his shoulder. The two exchange a few words, but they are packed with meaning. At first it seems like they recognize each other. Blake exclaims how the White Fang leadership could never approve of such an attack. Bane must have gone rogue and insane, and she was spot on. At that point he was completely apathetic and focused on his revenge. He tells Blake to continue her mission while he continues his, and so they begin to fight. Blake was slick and agile enough to dodge his attacks, but her sword strikes weren't enough to even get through the thick fur of his arms. His chainsaw greatsword activated while they were in the middle of the clash, breaking her sword in half. From then on, Blake got wrecked really hard. Weiss and Yang enter the wagon and protect her, but this guy was too good for them, even fighting together. Fortunately, help arrived.
Oobleck saw the city walls approaching fast in the distance, and knew it was now or never. He drank a little plastic sack of pure sugar water that he kept in his pocket, activating his Semblance and gaining a lot of speed. He rushed ahead to the last wagon and picked up the fight against Bane. The two would be equally matched, and so he told the girls to go on and stop the train. Victory felt at hand, but upon seeing the controls… they realized that Bane literally destroyed it all, so then it couldn't be stopped. Weiss got creative and used her Semblance to create ice bumps, but it didn't work fast enough. They were short of a few seconds before colliding with Vale's west gate. The tons of explosives were still right there. Weiss could only hold the girls together and shield them in an ice block. The convoy collides with the wall, and it explodes. Everyone received a huge punch from the impact, and soon the wagons were flipped upside down.
...
Bane's plan worked to perfection.
The convoy was in pieces, but in turn there was a massive hole in the city's defense. Oobleck and Bane get up from the daze and continue to fight inside the big wagon. Now all the White Fang members jump off the convoy and disappear into the city rooftops at great speed, leaving their leader behind. Among the rubble and scraps, the ice block was still holding strong. Weiss undoes it, and all of them seem to be safe. They turn around just in time to see an army of Grimm about to enter the city in a minute.
Just then they spotted Ruby feebly walking towards them, having survived the crash. She told them not to worry — she wasn't sitting on her ass the entire time. She took her time to make a phone call. Weiss turned around again, and realized this part of the city was completely empty — all the people were moved away. And then suddenly, Jaune, all geared up, walked in by their side.
"Jaune, Ruby? Seriously?!" Weiss said, what made Jaune a little bit mopey. Apparently she called him first, and then Jaune made the smart choice, and called everyone else.
The girls look on to see literally everyone behind them. Team JNPR, CRDL, CFVY, Glynda, Port, Detective Braun, several of the background teams that we saw throughout the first two volumes, and even Ozpin himself. He thanks team RWBY for their efforts, but they should probably prepare for the incoming battle.
What follows is the coolest fighting sequence we can muster. Literally everyone is here, and we continue to blow the remaining budget in a free-for-all fight. We get to see everyone's weapons, everyone's powers and skills they developed so far. There is nothing more than that — it's literally five whole minutes of non-stop amazing fight choreography without any important dialogue, until all Grimm are dead. Also here is one of the first times we see Jaune kicking ass. We could use a few minisodes showing how he's doing with Pyrrha and their training, and now he kills his first Grimm single handedly using his sword. There are other three scenes that I insist to show. One is Ruby feebly holding up her scythe to try and score a kill, only to fail due to fatigue and being taken out of the battle by Braun. The other is Ozpin's first on-screen kill. We see an elder Ursa suddenly pounce at him from behind. We cut away to someone else telling him to watch out, but then the camera went back to Ozpin, showing that the entire massive Ursa became a horrid splatter of black ooze against the wall of a house. Its body was hit by such blunt force that it instantly liquefied from one frame to the next.
Lastly, they still had a big problem with the Nevermores in the sky, but they got it covered. You see, just yesterday a certain product started hitting the shelves after months of law regulations and paperwork. All characters who carry firearms now load them with a special white magazine — Dust Bullets. With those they are capable of tearing all the Nevermores to pieces, despite the white layers protecting their chests. The bullets are so strong that they go through their bodies and continue flying off into the sky like white lasers.
With most of the Grimm dealt with, Ozpin gives the call for Glynda, and so she uses her psychokinesis to push all the rubble and pieces of the convoy in one big pile, essentially closing off the hole made in the city wall. The adult Huntsmen go ahead and continue going after the Grimm outside the gate. The students are left behind to rest, showing great progress despite being just some six months in training. Of course, kudos goes mostly to team RWBY, and Ruby herself hates being praised the one time she didn't actually fight anything. Thanks to them, a massive crisis was averted. Speaking of which...
Suddenly, Bane gets launched through the rubble as he receives an attack from Oobleck. The two were still fighting 1v1 all this time inside the huge wagon. He was ready to bounce back, but he found himself quickly surrounded by an army of Huntsmen. On a rage-filled impulse he tried going for Ruby, blaiming her for his failed plan. Ozpin instantly appeared by the man's side, pointing a cane to his neck, making him fall to his knees in paralyzing fear. Babe just lowered his head in shameful silence as he was arrested with a pair of Atlas energy shackles. He would be sent to the special confinement of Vale City, along with all the other White Fang members who were caught by Braun offscreen.
With the day saved, the officers allow the people to come in and see the result of the battle. A thousand photo flashes start to go off as people applaud the warriors. The repair of the wall begins immediately, and for now team RWBY can finally sit down and rest on each other's shoulders.
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Needless to say, after the news channel clearly shows the White Fang commander leading the failed terrorist attack, the council of Vale cuts all ties with the White Fang leader, Sienna Kahn. Her plan failed, and so she's forced to throw Bane under the bus retreat to the shadows. From then on, the White Fang was officially labeled as criminals within the nation.
With that the episode ends, but not the volume. We still have one more episode to go.
Commentary (spoilers): This two-part episode carries essentially the same point as the original, except it is more consequential to the overall story, marking team RWBY's third instance of fame and notoriety, plus I changed the setting from a train to a truck-like convoy to keep the worldbuilding safe. It's kind of important to know that the only train line in this world is between Vale and Atlas, as Atlas doesn't have acess to the sea and thus only trades through the train route. I removed Ruby from the final battle just to give a bit of protagonism to the other three girls. As you may have noticed, I'm not focusing so much on character interactions, more so I'm giving opportunities for them, and hoping you can envision them yourself. I'll only focus on dialogue when it becomes important to the story. These last few sections are the most vocal that Blake has been so far, a clear sign that she mellowed out for her friends.
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The last episode of the volume is set on a very tonally different take than the last one. It begins with Ozpin coming over to class, and announcing that tomorrow he would host a banquet for all the Huntsmen in Vale, and that the students were obligated to participate. They could even find a dance partner if they wanted.
The following episode would follow the students' perspective as thet prepare for the event. This will be the first party Ruby ever went to, and she gets advice that vary wildly between her three teammates, and can't make a decision on how to dress. Eventually, with the help of Coco and Sky, she finds a cute red dress and high heels to wear at the feast. Yang has been to a dozen clubs and parties, so she's not sweating. Blake outright refuses to participate even if she gets punished. and Meanwhile, Weiss is convinced by the idea that everyone (even the older men) would try to ask her out for the party, and was throwing cutesy fits just thinking about it.
The second plot (and main one) involves Jaune trying to get a date. I skimmed over this aspect of him so far, but Jaune really is attracted to all the girls, except only for Ruby and Nora for obvious reasons. The first scene is essentially the same as the original show, as Jaune corners Ren right after his shower and he sits there uncomfortably as Jaune opens up. In this version Pyrrha doesn't have any good advice to give him — thi party is making her more anxious than any fight she ever had. It's made even worse by Jaune assuming she has went to tons of parties and had dozens of boyfriends before, given that she's so pretty and strong, and apparently famous. If she can't get a dance partner, Jaune might as well wear a dress and dance with himself, because he has no chance. Jaune's plot line would involve him asking out all the other girls and failing miserably with each one.
...
Eventually the day passes, and we see everyone all drippy for the party. It's not just the students attending, but literally all of the other adult Huntsmen we've seen so far as well, even Braun and the teachers. All the girls are dressed pretty much the same as the original except Yang — for this version I think she should get a purple long dress to fit her color scheme. Coco needs a specially good dress as well, to fit her personality. All the boys wear the same model of tuxedo except with slightly different tints in color. Weiss expected all the boys to ask her out, but in the end no one did, and so she sat alone and angry. Blake showed up in a black dress despite her protest at the start of the episode, and she spent the whole night tending to Yang after she got really drunk.
Jaune shows up alone and depressed. He and Ruby find each other sitting away from all the party, and they had a little chat about how uncomfortable they felt. With them here, now Pyrrha was the only one left to arrive. Ruby reveals that Pyrrha probably wasn't coming — in fact, Ruby saw her standing in front of the door for a whole minute before chickening out and running away. She had a red dress and everything, but probably got too nervous as always. Jaune leaves to track her down.
He eventually finds her moping alone and crying a bit in the castle rooftops. They sit side by side with the shattered moon up above as he tries to cheer her up a bit. Here we get the first idea of Pyrrha as a character — we're familiar with her shy personality, but here we understand why she is like that. Pyrrha was never allowed a normal childhood. She was trained and homeschooled by her father ever since she can remember. He said that she was born special, and that it was for her own good that she needed to stay away from people, and never talk too much. She felt comfortable like that, despite being sad. But in the end she realized that… Fighting is the only thing she knows how to do.
She doesn't know how to do anything else other than kill with perfection. She has no hobbies, she neve went to parties, she never had friends — she can't even talk to people without her throat closing up. She's not ready for this. Now the weight of expectations is on her back. She wonders what other people will think if she shows up alone. Is her dress fine? Is the make up right? Will they think she's too boring? What if she eats too much? Will the others think less of her? She has so much unreasonable fear. To Jaune it was so weird to see Pyrrha, a person so strong in battle, crumbling away so easily due to a dumb party. But maybe he was stupid for thinking too highly of her. Everyone has their shortcomings, even her.
In the end, Jaune stops and thinks longingly about what to do. Maybe he knows a way to solve this. He holds Pyrrha's hand and drags her down the rooftop. He then forced her inside the main hall, begging that she just wait for a short minute without him. Pyrrha walks around with her heart beating wildly — just a single person slowly turning their eyes to her direction is enough for her to hide away behind a pillar. Eventually this emotional torture ends when everyone hears the front gate open loudly.
One by one people turn to see… and start giggling. The giggling turns to laughter, and soon Pyrrha sees what everyone is giggling at. Jaune actually showed up in a white short dress — the one Ruby had discarded that early morning for not fitting her gothic color theme. Suddenly all the eyes of the party were on him as people smiled and laughed. He walks up to Pyrrha, saying that an Arc always keeps their promise.
In one swell move Jaune took all the heat away. By becoming the most embarrassing person in there, he made Pyrrha feel normal and relieved. She felt like nothing mattered anymore, Jaune just crossed all barriers before anyone else could. It's fucked up, but it works. Sure, his image was in the gutter now, but at least his friends are having fun, and he managed to make Pyrrha laugh. Thankfully there was one way to make this less awkward. He invites her for a dance, and she accepts.
Out of fucking nowhere, Jaune shows to have the slickest moves in the entire fucking kingdom, and Pyrrha is capable of matching him — something we foreshadowed in the girls night episode. Soon Nora forces Ren to join in, and we get the most absurd sequence in the show. These four kids make the greatest synchronized dance ever seen without preparation. It's inherently one of the silliest moments in the show, but for what it is, I wouldn't dare to discard it. Everyone was surprised, but Jaune explains that these kinds of things come naturally when you grow up with six sisters.
All around the party, all the girls that previously rejected his advances now regret dearly having rejected him. That showmanship from Jaune was enough to light up the party a lot more — it stopped being awkward and circled back to badass very quickly. Cardin was watching it all from the back, and he states to his team that Jaune is a complete fool… but he did manage to grow enough guts to do something Cardin would never do in a million years. He respected him, but it didn't make it any less stupid.
...
As we gear towards the end of the episode, we have a final interaction between Ozpin and Ruby, as he approaches her near the corner. She doesn't seem to be enjoying the party, and Ruby complains that this is not the type of action she signed up for. She didn't even understand why people like this sort of thing anyway. Ozpin tries very subtly and longingly to give her reasons as to why they need time off. He's essentially trying to tell Ruby that she and her friends have picked a career where each and every one of them will suffer greatly and possibly die young in their jobs, and it's because of that they need moments like this. Moments where they can appreciate the peace they built. Ruby is a warrior, he gets that, but she should not dream about spending her entire life on the battlefield. She has to make the best with the time given to her — while she and her friends are young and healthy. Ruby eventually gets the memo and learns the lesson.
She goes ahead around the party to collect her friends individually, grabbing each of them by the elbows. The volume ends as we see Ruby dragging them towards everyone else in the dance floor, so they can have fun together. With everyone smiling and the party still going on till midnight, Volume II concludes. Credits role, and cue ending music.
Commentary (spoilers): Putting the prom episode here at the end is borderline perfect, thematically and pacing wise. You're crazy if you think I was gonna remove the prom episode for something that, up until now, is a story about teenagers in a school setting. Pyrrha's character was changed in personality, so that was the only aspect that needed minor tweaking. We got rid of Sun earlier, so unfortunately Blake didn't have anyone to go with (not that she would accept him at all in this version). The best part in my eyes is that we didn't have to intercut the prom with another plot, so this is truly just a sweet ending without any hooks for the next volume. Again, the more simple, the more effective we can tell the story.
At the end, we managed to introduce two side villains, two new factions and a whole other nation, all the while developing our characters naturally and not overloading said new information. Our villains admittedly sucked and are one dimensional, but some things have to be sacrificed in order for the rule of cool to keep going. Would you want a whole volume of political discussion about the White Fang trying to get into power? I don't think so. I'm pretty satisfied with this, let's move on to the next volume, next chapter.