RWBY RE:colored

by Royal-Harmonica

This is a re-imagination of the story of RWBY given as a pitch, a review, and a scene-by-scene style of writing. It's purpose is merely to adapt the series into a more cohesive and simple series for teenage and mature audiences. If you're not a nerd, your cringe discretion is advised. I post primarily on AO3, so this might be not be up to date.

7. Volume V (The Four Journeys)

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VOLUME V

To put this one into comparison, this would easily be the volume with the most amount of plot and least amount of fights. The narrative will be split between the main four girls in their individual quests, until the moment they can finally reunite at the climax. A volume focused more on one revelation after the other that eventually led to the ultimate conclusion of everyone's developments. Once all the mysteries of their past are cleared, we can finally move the spotlight to the future, as well as different characters. It's a natural conclusion, with the downside of leaving our four main characters in a static state for a long while. Well, maybe not. I'll see what I can do. For now I'll just describe what happens in each of their storylines and then I'll switch focus when it's appropriate. I have no idea how to structure these episodes, but I'll leave moments of intermission.

Like always, we begin with Ruby.

Ruby's story would begin at her mother's grave — out by the cliff towards the sea, and beyond the forest outside of town. She apologizes for not coming here as much as before, but unfortunately now she has many more graves to visit. This whole scene is mostly to recap what has happened again in the previous volumes in a childish way. Ruby tells her mother about her team, her criminal nemesis, the tournament, and all the other friends she made along the way. But now, every single one of them are on duty away from the city, while her own team is split apart, maybe never to return. The festival ended in a tragedy, and even now, one month later, the city is still trying to recover. Sometimes she feels like crying, but she knows there's no time for that. Ruby realizes she's running late. As a last remark to her mother, she promises that the woman, Cinder Fall, will pay for everything she did.

She swears revenge, with a violent tone that we never saw from her.

What follows is a montage of Ruby helping rebuild the war-thorn city in any way she can. Now that she's alone and doesn't have her team, she's not allowed to take any missions in the wild, much less leave in a state of emergency. To cope with her time, she essentially took the role that detective Braun used to fulfill. She became the city's super-powered errand girl. The whole montage would mostly be about her carrying absurdly heavy stuff on her back for the workers fixing the houses — a job that is effortless for a Huntsman. She also was a sharp mechanic, so she could fix machines and tools that were destroyed, and wasn't scared by peril situations like long falls or hazardous eletrical wiring. And every night, she would get right back to her training in the woods despite not having any battle to fight anymore. Her oath to take revenge fuelled her desire to get stronger. It was a whole month of hard working for Ruby.

By the end, with much effort, the workers successfully managed to rebuild the communications tower, thus linking Vale to the rest of the world once again. This connects all scroll phones to a network once again, allowing messages and news to come out across nations. This will be a very important detail.

During these last few months, the only friend she managed to keep contact with was Oscar, since his farm duties allowed him to supply the sheltered people with food. He has been in the city every day. Once Ruby was done working, he invited her for lunch as always. They just sat side by side in the park, eating sandwiches. What follows is a bit of personal exposition, as Oscar ask how her family is doing. Qrow has been disappearing, and she hasn't talked with him for a long time now. Tai is still in the new town memorial graveyard, firmly planted in front of Yang's grave all day, every day. There are no signs of Yang anywhere, other than traces of her blood that were close to detective Braun's body, and her purple scarf that was left behind. Blake went missing, and Sun is the only one who could know where she went — he also disappeared. Ruby was still keeping up her training while she could, but she's no longer in the academy. The castle was destroyed in such a way that repairs won't be over this year or the next, even with Glynda working all day. Ruby still has no idea of what to do now. She is powerless, and her mind is more crowded than ever.

Fortunately or unfortunately, that situation would change soon.

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Qrow returns to town, but he doesn't have the courage to look his niece in the eyes after what happened. In his mind he failed completely. He promised that he was the strongest man in the world, and that he could protect her from everything. He was wrong. Not only Ruby almost died, but now she finds herself on the same pit of loneliness as him. No team, no friends, and a desire for vengeance that will only bring her more pain. It would be best if she never saw him again.

That day he went straight for the castle, which still looks like a massive piece of shit. Most of the rubble was cleared, and Ozpin's office was reallocated to the lower levels. Ozpin was finally able to get some work done now that communications were reestablished. As he expected, no new missions or scouts were being demanded. Cinder must have gathered every Grimm inside the nation of Vale and used them for her invasion, and now at least things seem to be peaceful. Qrow has finally returned, and he demands to, once again, take the mission to track down execute the renegade woman, like he does every other time. Ozpin doesn't even try to stop him this time — he also has a reason to get Cinder.

Here Qrow asks what was that blue thing that he exchanged for Ruby. Ozpin explains, but there isn't actually anything to say about it. The relics are just these things radiating with strange power, but no one knows how to use them, or what is their purpose. All they know is that Grimm are attracted to the relics once they see it. It has been hiding in the castle way before Ozpin, and maybe way before his predecessor. They don't know much, but they can conclude one thing. If Cinder did all this heinous shit, and killed hundreds of people just to get it, then it must have a value much above what they can think.

This will not just be an assassination mission. He needed to retrieve the relic, and extort its use from her if he could. Qrow, once again, refuses to go with any partners that Ozpin can give him. Qrow works alone, and only alone. The greatest issue would be figuring out where the crazy bitch went. Her power to control Grimm allows her to safely travel alone in the wildlands, so there are no witnesses of her ever passing by anywhere.

Except… this time was different.

More than a month ago, Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren all left Vale City behind Ozpin's back, in order to chase after Cinder and supposedly rescue Pyrrha. Ozpin expected them to fail miserably and come back home, but… they actually got a lead. After reestablishing communications this morning, Ozpin received a message from Ren — coming all the way from the city of Argus, in Atlas. They discovered that Cinder came to a small village up north, in order to hold up a meeting with two other people. They managed to capture one of those two, and gather information. Apparently she gave Pyrrha away to someone else, and so team JNR followed after him. They didn't manage to find out where exactly Cinder might be headed, but they know she is seeking something or someone called "Anima".

That name rang a bell to Ozpin, and so he searched the ancient maps kept in the castle's archive room. And so he discovered an area known in the old maps called Anima, "the land of light", hidden far away beyond the Forbidden North. And so, Ozpin made a map diagram, marking a huge area where these sacred lands are meant to be. Ozpin was willing to believe team JNR, and for Qrow, even if the kids are probably wrong, something is better than nothing. He would rest tonight and go the following morning. On the corridor he meets up with Glynda, who questions when he intends to talk with Ruby. Qrow reaffirms that she doesn't need to know, and walks off.

...

Next scene would be Qrow at the new city graveyard. He was there actually to place a shot of whiskey by old Simon's grave, wishing that the bastard is doing better now in the ever after. He's yet another name on the big list of loved ones that Qrow failed to save. He also meets with Tai, who looks like an absolute bum after a whole month of grieving. The two exchange a few words, but they get to one another perfectly through their shared misery. To them this "disappearance" of Yang looked awfully familiar. Qrow had no doubt that she had a hand on this. He will be leaving the city for a while towards the Forbidden North, so there's a great chance he'll bump into her. He promises to bring Yang back, and so he walks off again.

…

Qrow now drinks in the park at midnight, completely alone. The only bar who allowed him in is now gone, and he feels miserable. In his solitary rage, he decides to just say fuck it and leave that same night. He stocks up on more alcohol than food, and prepares for a long trip. Of course, just like all other times, he also goes to Summer's grave to speak his mind before leaving. Talking to her tombstone is actually one of the happiest that we saw Qrow so far, and that is the most depressing part about it. Qrow is sure that she would be heartbroken about all what has been going on, and she would probably despise him for the choices he has made.

He begs for forgiveness, before turning around… and seeing Ruby, right behind him. She had a face of determination.

By a single glance, Qrow could see that she was ready for a trip, and she had her scythe in hand. Her only words are: "I'm coming with you."

Qrow frowns. "So it was you, sneaking around me all day? You got good."

"I learned from the best." Ruby replied, sarcastically.

"… Go home to bed. It's getting late."

"You're going after her, right? Cinder Fall… I'm coming with you."

"No, you're not. This has nothing to do with you. Forget it." Qrow replied, menacingly.

"Nothing to do with me?! That woman — she destroyed my home! She hurt my friends! she took away everything I had… and you want me to just sit here?! I'm sick of doing nothing! Everyone is out there fighting… I can't bear to stay behind anymore! I'm a warrior! I want to fight too!" Ruby began yelling.

Qrow began unsheathing his huge sword from his back. "Ruby, don't make me do this. Not here, not now."

"I'm not a kid anymore! I can help you! We can get her together!"

"RUBY!" Qrow shouted, a powerful shout that echoed around the forest. He and the girl were left in silence after that.

In the end, Ruby knew that the only way to convince him would be proving her growth. And so she attacked him head on, and Qrow was forced to defend himself. A quick and awesome fight, in front of Summer's grave and under the moonlight. It gives the illusion that she's fighting against him on the same level, but Qrow is not even trying to strike her back. It goes on for a while, but it's ultimately unresolved. They just go back to starting positions, and she's breathing heavily.

By the end Qrow is looking down in shame. He was painfully conflicted. He puts away his sword and says, "You're right, Ruby… you're not a kid anymore… But what does that mean to you?"

Ruby has no answer. After a while Qrow just sighs in frustration. He turns around and starts walking away. "Say goodbye to your father, and meet me at the northwest gate. Take your time."

...

After that Ruby did as he said, but ended up being too much of a coward to speak to Tai directly, so she left him a letter. On her way across town, she meets with Oscar again. He was actually going to her house with some food to cheer her up, noticing how sad she was that morning. He quickly finds out what she's planning to do, but doesn't attempt to stop her. In fact, he gives her the whole big bundle of food for her to eat on the trip — it was the least he could offer her, after she helped save his life so many times. She hugs him, gives him a little peck on the cheek, and then runs along. Oscar just stands there like a deer on the headlights, covering the side of his face. Poor little femboy.

In the end she reconvenes with Qrow at the gate, and so they depart immediately. But before Ruby leaves, she sends out a little video message for all her friends in case they pick up the phone. She reveals that she'll be leaving Vale as well, and asks Yang, Blake and Weiss to stay safe and be strong. Her mission will be going into the wildlands to find and take revenge on the one responsible for the invasion. She promises to not fail. Regardless of what the future holds for them, those years they had together… were the best of her life.

And so the message ends, and Ruby stares focused on the dark horizon covered by night. The volume's first act thus concludes.

Commentary (spoilers): At first this might seem like the exact same plot for Ruby as she had in Volume 4 of the original. That couldn't be farther from the case. The best decision I made was not allowing Jaune to go along with Ruby, and instead have his own journey. These two are incredible protagonists, but when put constantly next to one another, they overshadow each other with their similarities. Jaune and Ruby are at their best when apart, and I promise you, Qrow being alone with Ruby has boundless potential for deep and thoughtful scenes that these two would never share while accompanied by someone else. Not to mention, but now our characters have a complete new destination that isn't Haven at all. I already know exactly what I want to do for the Qrow and Ruby segments, so I won't talk long. I'm most unsure about Weiss and Yang, but I'll cook up something that might be worth watching.

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That was the beginning of Ruby's story, but we also have three other main characters.

Let's go with Yang now, since she's the one we know less about.

Yang woke up after an uncertain amount of time. She opens her eyes, but her body is almost totally paralyzed — covered in bandages all over her limbs and torso. She manages to get herself together and use peripheral vision to understand where she was. It seemed like some sort of tent, a big and wide one, like the ones used in the circus. The walls and floor were littered with random crap that seemed to be from many different places of Vale, Atlas and Haven, judging by the design. Yang could feel someone in the room with her but remained quiet, not knowing who or what it could be.

But eventually, this person makes it very clear that she's aware of Yang. "Don't try to get up yet," a woman said.

By context clues, we can figure it's that same woman who saved Yang at the end of the last volume. She was changing her clothes behind a screen — taking off pieces of some sort of dress made of red animal hides. Eventually she comes out, wearing her usual red armor. By now we're still keeping her face out of the shots to keep the suspense going a while longer. She proceeds to sit down beside Yang, cross her legs and pull a fat cigar out of her rack. She blows out smoke in the entire room, making Yang cough and ask, "Who are you… where am I?"

The woman completely ignores the question. "It seems you're finally conscious. Took your damn time… Your Aura has been weakened. You need to recover your spirit to accelerate your recovery." She said, and so she slowly stands above Yang. She was preparing a fist.

"Hey… what are you-" Yang couldn't even finish saying, as the woman arched herself back and unleashed a downward strike in Yang's stomach. The punch shook the ground and made some of the trinkets in the walls fall off. Yang was in pain, but the shock activated her Impact Absorption Semblance. Her Aura flared up, and she was filled with energy. She quickly rolled backwards on the ground, landed on her feet, and was already in position to fight the woman.

"It's a truly powerful Semblance you were blessed with. You should be fully active soon enough." The woman said.

Unfortunately for her, Yang was fully active right away. She went ahead and threw punches and kicks at the woman, who easily dodged and deflected it all. It was an incredibly quick exchange — at the first slip, she grabbed Yang by the forehead and slammed her on the ground. Yang didn't falter, she immediately held the woman's wrist and put her on an armbar choke. However, she quickly managed to counter that as well, and throw Yang away. "He taught you everything. Good." She says. The two continued on this back and forth until they broke too much stuff in that tent, so the woman decided to go all out, and put Yang down for good.

"You… old… hag!" Yang said through her gasp for air.

"I saved your life, stupid brat. Show some gratitude."

Suddenly, a big man, also dressed in crimson red, rushed over to the entrance of the tent and said, "Raven, is everything alright?"

"She woke up. I'm helping her get better. Go back to what you were doing." she replied, and he left without further question. That name immediately rang something to Yang. She slowly got up from the concussion and questioned, "hey… your name… what's your name?" But, Raven continued ignoring her. She went over a wardrobe, picked an orange tank top and black pants, and tossed it to Yang. By the way, she's been literally covered in only white bandages and her biker shorts this whole fight sequence. It's pretty hot.

"Get dressed, and meet me outside when you're done." The woman says, and for the first time the camera focuses on her face…

It was Raven Branwen, Yang 's birth mother. Her red eyes make it unmistakable to both the audience and Yang. For the dumber audiences, we show a small flashback to that moment in volume III, where we saw Raven's picture. Of course, now she looks much different and older, she has long hair, but the threatening red eyes are still there. Yang is looking at her in a joyful surprise, but Raven just turns around and walks off the tent.

Yang gets dressed, walks out into the light, and sees the camp for the first time.

The scenery is a big bombastic reveal of an actually beautiful place. A nice green hill, and a blue sky. The camp is located around some stone ruins of what once used to be a palace — hidden around a forest and fortified by a wall of wooden pikes. Several other tents and small cabins were set up randomly around this huge circle. Yang could also hear the sound of water, and sees a huge waterfall far away. Never in her life has she seen anything this naturally beautiful. She was in awe, until Raven approached her from behind.

She was still smoking that cigar. "How are you feeling?"

"This place… it feels so familiar." Yang said.

"Maybe… after all, this was supposed to be your home." Raven said. She and Yang then look at each other for a while. "So, do you want to skip the whole song and dance, or-"

Yang slowly moved in close to give one of her signature bear hugs. But this time she did it softly, almost by pure instinct. She didn't actually intend to hug Raven, but her body did it on its own. This is what is expected from a mother and daughter, right? After a few seconds Raven tapped on her shoulder and said, "alright, it's enough."

Yang was overcome with a strange feeling — the pure magic of meeting someone close to you for the first time. The first questions started popping in her head. Raven asked Yang if she could remember anything, but unfortunately she couldn't. She remembers Vale was invaded, they raided an Atlas ship, it fell down, and then Blake… Well, after that, it was all like a blur. Yang's anger blinded her in such a way that she can't remember much of anything. Raven revealed that the battle for the city was won, and that all her friends managed to pull through. Raven had found Yang in extremely fatal condition, so she was forced to take her away to survive. Her words seemed truthful enough to relieve Yang — once again being glad that her friends are okay, without thinking that her friends might be worried for her. Next question was about this place. Raven says it's a land far away from everything — uncharted by all of the world's maps. This is the tribe's home, and the other family Yang didn't know she had.

After a while, Raven just gets annoyed by her constant questions. We can glean a lot of personality and character from Raven immediately, and she's a very interesting mix. She is both a no nonsense, apathetic type, but she is also comically irresponsible, caring for few things and respecting even fewer things. In the end she thinks it's best to introduce Yang to the rest of the tribe, so then they can stop looking at her ominously.

The Branwen tribe has no more than 14 people. It's a small tribe, but they are not pushovers by any means. Yang can sense that every single person in there has an Aura emanating from their bodies. Each of them also has a different design. We won't talk about all of them, I'm just gonna focus on the three strongest that she will meet right away.

The most striking member is a seven foot tall guy with dark skin, a bald head and enough scars to make him look like a used training dummy. His name is Odion, and by his serious tone and the way he addresses with a lot of respect Raven, we understand that he is her lapdog in the tribe. He doesn't question Yang's welcome into their group at all, since Raven vouches for her. However, the next guy didn't warmly welcome her like the first one.

He was on watch, up above a huge pole when Raven called him. Niko was his name, and he looks funny. He is a stumpy little guy — a small humanoid covered in a red silk ninja uniform with a hood, and has a long squirrel tail. He was as tall as Yang's knees, had a high-pitched voice, and under the dark void of his hood she could only see two yellow eyes. He is a rodent Faunus. Naturally the mere sight of him made Yang point and laugh, but it showed to be a clear mistake as always. He had insane speed, quickly jumping on Yang's arm. "What are you laughing at, straw head?" he said.

She tried to shake him off, but he quickly crawled from her arm to her back, then to her legs and finally her chest, all the while complementing her strong physique. Yang was too slow to catch him, but Raven managed to grab him by the tail and pull him off. "She certainly is your daughter, boss! I see lots of potential!" Niko said, before Raven tossed him far away.

After him, Raven asked one of the background tribe members, called Neil, if a guy named Shay had made any contact yet. Apparently not — he has been awfully late. He was supposed to do a quick job and come back. Well it doesn't matter — there was one last person Raven wanted to show. She was playing on the end of the hill all alone, picking flowers. Her physique alone made it clear she was younger than everyone else there.

That was Vernal.

She was picking up flowers and putting them on her hair, until she heard Raven calling her, making her frantically pull them off before she could see it. Vernal immediately recognized Yang as the girl that Raven brought along days ago, now finally awake. Yang tries to step up and greet the only normal person she saw so far, but Vernal backs away. "Vernal, like it or not she'll be here for a while. Come on." Raven said.

Vernal did as she was told and bowed to Yang, asserting her name as Vernal Branwen. Yang immediately looked at Raven in confusion — it's only natural, since it's their surname as well. Raven said, "She will clarify it to you later, now I'm busy. You two will have a lot of time since you'll be sleeping in her tent."

Vernal immediately protested. "What? But ma'am, I've made it all on my own! You said I wouldn't have to share it with anyone…"

"Shit happens, deal with it. Also, do me a favor and show her around," Raven said, walking back to her tent. After she was gone, Vernal threw a small fit of rage, swinging at the air. Yang tried to defuse the situation by complimenting her hair, but it only made her more mad. She turned around angrily — though she was short, she put her finger on Yang's face and said. "Let it be known that you're not welcomed here, outsider!"

Vernal walked off and Yang stood there without expression. She wasn't intimidated, it was just an awkward moment to be in. Eventually Vernal realized that Yang wasn't following her, so she shouted, "Are you going to stand there all day!?"

Yang has no idea what she just found herself into. It's all so mysterious, but the energy of this place brings something dear to her. She continued following Vernal around and didn't listen to a word she said, being lost in thought. So ends the first part of her story.

Commentary (again): For now Yang's part is done. Jesus I'm ten pages in and I'm not even halfway done with the first act. Thankfully the ladder two are almost unchanged, so I guess I can be more brief about them. Yang's story is by far the least important to the overall plot, but it's truly the most impactful due to a few clear changes. The whole thing with Vernal and Raven are the reason why I chose not to cut off her arm anymore, because I would struggle to write a plot about overcoming depression and doubt that is mixed with a story about slowly realizing that a person you love is a monster, and suddenly you became someone's mom. These two don't bode well together. I'm gonna go on a tangent just to discuss Vernal's design. I'm probably not the only one who thinks that her redesign for Fixing Rwby is LEAGUES above the original, so I'm just going to pretend that design is canon and move on. The only change I wish to make is to regress her age to 14 years old, so Yang and her can have a different relationship. The original savage punk look doesn't convey the character I'm going for. So yeah… sue me if you can, Raymond.

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Next one will be Weiss.

Her part is the most sad about all of this. Weiss was essentially taken away from everything she loved, and brought back to a house with everything she hated. We start her story by just accompanying her as she trains with her rapier in a green garden, alone. Once she's done sparring against the air, she sits on a fancy bench and looks ahead in complete apathy. The beauty of this place doesn't elude her one bit. Eventually Klein, her butler, comes to ask if she's okay. We haven't seen him since volume I, and he hasn't changed at all since. In fact, he seems even more worried for Weiss since that time. He offers her tea but she barely takes a sip. The butler manages to cheer her up with his sudden bipolar sparks, changing the color of his eyes momentarily, and reminding her of Yang. In the end, Klein reveals that her father wishes to see her in his study. Weiss asks the whereabouts of her older sister and mother, but it seems like they are still away from the mansion doing business.

"So mom still doesn't want to talk with me?… Alright…" Weiss says, walking off.

From then we get a few cool shots about the huge white mansion of the Schnee family. It has an undeniable lustrous and rich design, but all the lights are usually turned off, giving this feeling of cold and empty spaces. On her way to the study, Weiss passes by the huge portrait of Nikolas Schnee, making his first visual appearance in the show. He's an undeniably handsome man, who looked rugged by a few battle scars and his grizzled long hair and beard. He wears a majestic red cape, white and red armor, and is holding Myrtnaster in his hands. There is also clear visual storytelling present in this small scene of Weiss walking through the corridor. Other small family portraits surround Nikolas' big portrait. They all started when he was alive, and everyone had big smiles all the time in the family photos. But as he started disappearing from the pictures, the family clearly grew more estranged — having little to no joy, all separated in individual portraits.

As she walks through the corridor, she comes face to face with a boy exiting his room, who looks just like her but with short hair. "Hey, Whitley… how are you doing?" She asks.

The boy simply looks away from her and rushes back into his room without talking. She immediately covers her face in shame, and continues walking along. This moment might come as a shock, because Whitley has been COMPLETELY unmentioned up to this point. He only appears as a silent background character in Weiss's flashbacks in volume III. Not to mention that now, the first time he appears, he doesn't say anything. We can only glee that, just like everyone else in the family, he is upset with Weiss.

Nevertheless, she arrives at her father's study. It has really big, totally unnecessary and frightening doors. Unlike the entire mansion, this place is mostly covered in intricate, dark wood furniture instead of white. It's a very unnerving scene. The big man is sitting on his comically large chair, hands held together on the comically large table. He asks with his threatening voice, "Are you feeling better now?"

"No." Weiss says, direct and cold. "And I won't be."

Jacques gets up from his chair and puts his palms on the table. We can see immediately that he's taller than Weiss, and he looks strong too. He says, "I took you away from a war zone. I cleared your name. I welcomed you into this mansion. Everything you left behind is still yours. I didn't skimp a single quarter on getting you exactly what you wanted — the best of everything. The one who paid for every single Lien you wasted in that city was me… What did I do to deserve your disrespect?"

"My friends…" she said, what made Jacques sigh in frustration before she could finish. "You didn't even give me the chance to know if they are okay… I don't even know if they are all alive, because of you!"

"Friends, huh? And what did I tell you? What did I tell you a year ago, huh? You wanted to be a Huntress, right? Well, Huntsmen die, Weiss. That's all they are good for nowadays! Their job is to get killed in the wilds like dogs. If you stayed home like I told you, you wouldn't have to go through all this-" Jacques was saying.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Weiss shouted, and so the two just kept staring at each other in silence for a while. The man finally walks away from behind his huge desk, and he stands in front of Weiss. This is the first time we see Jacques full body, and also his face. Thus far we only saw him through "Godfather" camera angles. He has a towering and strong stature like Ironwood, wears a fully white suit and has a nice mustache.

"You need to take your mind away from all that. It's not good for you." Jacques said, putting one hand on her shoulder and the other on her cheek. It looks like an intimate moment, but these two are emotionally dead, so it feels forced. He continues saying, "Listen… Vale is rebuilding the communication tower by now. It's part of our business, so our company is sending supplies to help them. Soon enough you'll get to message whoever you want, and you will see that they are all fine. That's what I can do for you… And in the meantime, there's something you can do for yourself. Tomorrow the people from the syndicate will throw a gala at the theater. You can't stay in your room forever, Weiss. I know a little bit of socializing should cheer you up. You're coming with me, and that's final." Jacques finishes.

After that, Weiss just silently leaves his room.

...

We go directly into the party night.

It's all just more fancy halls, saloons and parlor rooms, but this time they are golden in color. There are dozens of people speaking in little groups. Weiss entered the party alongside her brother and father, and she was wearing a nice bluish dress. We can immediately spot something different in her face, and realize that her eye scar was covered by make up. Her father tells her to not poke around to much, as they may recognize her as that girl from the Vytal tournament in Vale.

It doesn't take long before the three split apart, as Whitley silently leaves and Jacques goes to get pampered by the press. Here we see him interact with a character that, for now, doesn't seem important; Arthur Watts, head scientist of the research and development team of Atlas. He seems like a simple and eloquent guy, and he thanks Jacques for attending. He seems to take an interest in Weiss, commenting how he hasn't seen her in a long while. Jacques just invents a convenient excuse for her to be absent for the last year, and we end at that.

Now Weiss is alone again, and this scene is taken over mostly by self reflection and inner monologue. She starts hearing some very nasty things from the inner circles of people talking — like truly horrible things, even mocking what happened in Vale. Weiss begins to question how people can be this cynical, but eventually she starts wondering if she was like this as well, before meeting going to Beacon. Was she truly so much of a bitch that people like these used to be her colleagues and friends? Were these heinous conversations just normal for her?

Eventually she meets an unexpected face there; James Ironwood.

He looks worse for wear compared to volume III and IV, not shaving anymore apparently. He complimented her at first, but soon he noticed the clear sadness in her face. He apologized for all that transpired in Vale, blaming himself for everything, including Weiss' current situation. Ironwood is disturbed and uncertain about the future. Even if the few Huntsmen like them know the truth about what happened that night, to the general public it seemed like Atlas made a sneak attack on Vale in the middle of a peaceful festival. While the communications tower is off, the truth goes unspoken. The council of Atlas doesn't seem so mad that the attack happened, but they have forced Ironwood to prepare for war in case the other nations decide to retaliate. They will most likely discharge and arrest him after this situation is done — someone has to be the scapegoat. Things couldn't possibly look worse for them, and here they are, at a stupid party, just to keep up appearances. Before he left her alone, Ironwood tells her that if the situation truly escalates into war, then she should find refuge and run.

Otherwise… she would have to fight against all the people she grew to love back in Vale.

Those words rang extremely close to what her grandfather once said.

Suddenly Weiss was very nervous, walking fast through the corridors as people look at her in confusion. She eventually found the refreshment table, in an even bigger hall with even more people surrounding her. She started drinking the champagne more and more, hoping that it would make her feel better, like all adults say it does. And naturally, in a situation where an absurdly rich girl is getting herself drunk alone, a sleazebag will always make his move.

And so a rich boy with golden hair, who is clearly way older than her, and I won't even bother giving him a name, suddenly appears. He seems to have met Weiss at some point, but she comically has no recollection about him, at all. Just like anyone here, he comes from X family with X business, and has an infinite amount of wealth. He pulls all this fancy wording and charm to pretend he gives a shit about what she's feeling deep inside, all the while pushing her to drink more and more. Eventually Weiss gets silly drunk, and she's all smiles and laughter.

The show at the theater would begin soon, so golden boy tries to convince Weiss to come to his private booth, to probably rape her or something. She was ready to agree, when suddenly her little brother stepped in. Whitley shows up and destroys golden boy, just by flexing how rich the Schnee Mining Company is compared to golden boy's family business. Golden boy will never be up to his sister's standards, even with all the make up he put on. Whitley even mocked his company stock value for suddenly lowering in price in the last few months. He humiliated this guy so hard that he is forced to back away, being verbally defeated by a twelve year old boy. Weiss is still stupid drunk, so in her eyes Whitley just scared away a nice guy and ruined the night for her.

Whitley looked back at her and said, "I don't remember you being this stupid! Is that why you left home? To become a moron?!"

The two walk away from each other angrily, and so she decides to still go watch the theater show. It's whatever — Weiss can't focus on it because she is still angry and a little tipsy. Eventually her father came to talk with her. He starts reminding himself of when Weiss was younger, and she would always sing in this place for all the powerful people to know her talent. Her voice was perfect, just like her mother. He tries to convince her to do it one more time, and in her drunken stupor she agrees.

And so we get the whole scene with Weiss singing. It's rather quick, but in this version her song is not about her father. She doesn't actually choose the song, but ends up being a sad one. The lyrics remind her of the time with her team, so Weiss actually cries as she sings, which makes it even cooler to the public, and makes Jacques happy. This is essentially the moment where Weiss allows herself to grieve over what happened, which has been clearly hesitant to do, as to not show weakness to anyone. She walks off the stage crying before the song actually ends, but the crowd cheers anyway. Her father is pleased and his high nobility friends are jealous.

Life couldn't be better for him… for just 30 minutes more.

...

There was still a bit of after party left at the gala, and by then Weiss was both drunk and dealing with emotions. The second she began hearing those pieces of shit rich assholes mocking the people of Vale City, Weiss was bombarded with those horrible memories of the night illuminated by fire — where people were dying left and right while their families had to run and watch. She gets pissed, and immediately confronts everyone talking about that. More and more people were coming in so they can band together and feel justified for being horrible people. Soon Weiss was pointing fingers at everyone, and shouting loudly at them to shut their mouths. She wasn't listening to her father's orders anymore. Her tears from earlier had messed up her makeup, and now everyone can see the scar in her cheek. Some immediately recognize her as that girl who was a finalist in the Vytal Tournament. Her nervous meltdown culminates into the inciting incident.

Weiss was drunk and has a magic power that runs on imagination, and naturally that wouldn't end well. She felt anger for these people, and her desire to make them pay for their words accidentally activated her semblance on the floor. Spikes of ice start popping out of the ground at dangerous speed — a trick she used previously multiple times in battles. People were shocked and afraid of her, and soon everyone was running away and calling her monster. Thankfully Ironwood was there, and he was capable of calming Weiss down.

"It's okay… it's okay…" Ironwood says as the girl cries in his chest.

…

We don't even see how that situation concluded — we cut straight to later.

The three Schnee return to their mansion, and it's a very nerve-wrecking scene. Jacques just burst through the front door, immediately alarming Klein, but he orders the butler to stay right the fuck where he is. He's dragging Weiss along by her forearm, while she continuously begs him to calm down. He throws her into her room and locks the door behind him. Whitley stands outside and listens to their following argument.

Jacques doesn't really care about what she has to say — he's focused solely on what that little incident will do to his name. She embarrassed him beyond belief, and she doesn't have a single damn clue how to fix it. Eventually Weiss gets tired of being sorry, and barks back. She blames him for what happened, since this was all his idea. She didn't want to go — she never wanted to do any of this stupid high-society crap anymore. Jacques demands that she fulfills her obligations as an heir of this insanely rich family, but she refuses. At this point she evolved way past her old life. The arguing ends as Weiss shouts:

"I don't care what you want me to be! I don't care what anyone wants from me anymore! I told you, I'm a warrior! My place is helping defend the world that our family fought to create! AND NOT TO SIT AROUND AT A PARTY LIKE A LITTLE PORCELAIN DOLL, AND SING FOR YOU, AND ALL YOUR DEGENERATE, DISGUSTING FRIENDS-–!"

Slap.

…

A slap from a normal human isn't even remotely enough to slightly bruise her face, but it had a more lasting sentimental effect. Jacques walks off. He opens the door and looks back at her. "Sleep well. Hence tomorrow, you are no longer part of the Schnee family. You can go die with your friends however you wish. Just like you want."

And so Jacques slams the door, leaving Weiss in darkness.

She immediately starts backing away in shock until she arrives at the corner of the room, and crumbles to her knees. And so for many hours she just sits there and cries in a fetal position. Whitley, who was standing by the door, was immediately found by his father. And so the old man congratulated him, because the company was now totally his to inherit. This time Whitley is just sad, and he goes to his room. Weiss has officially nothing else anymore — no friends, no goal, and not even the last name she so proudly boasted for four volumes. All she can do is cry. And what better point to end her part of this section?

Commentary (spoilers): This whole part is like an episode worth of time, and it doesn't have a single fight scene. It's an entire section dedicated to the fall of Weiss. The strong-willed and aspiring prodigy, who was second in command of her team, who had limitless wealth that allowed her and her team anything they wanted, who proved to be one of the best of her generation… She lost everything. Strong will turned to helplessness, aspiring prodigy that lost her cause, wealth that is no longer hers, and the best of her generation that now goes to a party and nearly gets raped by a stranger while drunk. It's sad to see her hit rock bottom, after we saw four volumes worth of character development, in a constant fight for perseverance over her nurture. And when it comes to the other characters, I didn't do much. I just de-aged Whitley a bit and redesigned Jacques to be more masculine looking. The reason for doing so seems natural — his whole prerogative is looking strong and appearing smart. A guy that tries to win through intimidation, but in reality he is a weak man who has less control and maturity than his 12 year old son. Speaking of which, it is important to characterize Whitley as a kid who kind of hates his sister for abandoning him, but still wants to keep her safe. It's a small development, but it will be extremely important to what happens next in her story. I promise you; this first section seemed by the books in comparison to the original, but from now on, it will be COMPLETELY off the rails, and weird. Now I realize I said this would be quicker, but it ended up being longer than Yang and Ruby. God, I'm a failure.

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By here you should know that there won't be any kind of sidetrack or standalone episode for this entire volume — it's all one continuous narrative that all link together by the end. The only chance to see any other character in this volume will be through Minisodes. Now they won't be comedic anymore, not at all. For this volume, the theme of all the Minisodes will be "after the fall," and thus we will see little stories of what all our past characters are doing after the smoke settled — even the villains. However, we will not show how Jaune, Nora and Ren are doing, as we will follow their journey in volume VI. To summarize:

Team CRDL and CFVY were sent to the wildlands in order to create a long-range scout formation around Vale City. Team PCFHR returned home but are currently put through the ringer in sheer training, as Atlas expects a war soon enough. Aslan and Jobi are working overnight to search for White Fang simphatizers within the nation, trying to find out about their involvement with the invasion — Sun has yet to return. Oobleck was nearly crippled but still wanted to do as much as physically possible to fix up Beacon castle, and was relegated to paperwork. He and Miss Lucy are together in this slow process of recovery, both on reconstruction and their spirits, and here we would first see something blossom between them — nerdy guy X hot girl style. Roman and Neo survived the battle, but cannot simply walk into a hospital, so it will take longer for them to patch themselves. Emerald ended up giving away all the money they earned from the tournament in order to help those struggling in the ruins of the city, what made Mercury really upset. And lastly, Glynda and Tai came to Ozpin in order to report Ruby's disappearance, and Ozpin promises to do something about it.

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And finally, Blake.

Blake's section starts with her looking out into the sea, in shitty gray weather. She was wearing her bow again, but eventually takes it off once she realizes that she's alone. She doesn't say a single word, and suddenly we are thrown into a streak of flashbacks.

…

The first flashback is kind of short. It starts with a younger Blake, looking down while a big shadow of a man is yelling at her. The man says that what she is doing is a mistake. That she is throwing away her life for the wrong battle. She's becoming a pawn to the hatred of others, and she won't be able to change anything. In the end, Blake looks up and curses this man, calling him father. She calls him a coward for doing nothing while their people suffer. Just because he stopped, it doesn't mean there is no more work to be done.

If her father won't do anything, then she will continue the work that he gave up on, and she will make humanity respect the Faunus. The shadow of a woman then walks in, and begs Blake to not speak like that while sobbing. In the end Blake curses them both, saying that it is because of their weakness that her best friend lost her parents. "I HATE YOU!" she shouts, before running away and jumping out the window.

…

The second flashback shows an aged Blake, a couple of years after the first flashback, now wearing her volume I outfit. She's waiting in a high vantage point in the trees, seemingly in the wildlands. She silently watches the train tracks down below, and she's not alone. Adam was standing behind her, and they didn't seem like enemies during this time. He tells her to keep calm, and focus on her part. He'll be there in case the going gets tough.

Eventually the fated train arrives, and so they jump on top while it rushes past them. There are android soldiers everywhere, so we understand this is an Atlas cargo train on its way to Vale. Adam easily disposes of them while Blake rushes inside the biggest wagon. Her mission was to steal something valuable, as all she found inside was a few barrels of Dust and a huge safe. She sent her shadow inside the keyhole, and managed to press all the switches within. Then she used her super hearing to sense the right clicks of the dial code. The big door slowly opens, and there she sees… a bomb.

There was nothing inside the safe except a bomb, meant to trigger as soon as someone opened it. It was about to blow in her face, and she was surrounded by a few barrels of Dust. It was gonna hurt, but then Adam shows up, and tackles her through the window of the wagon just as it explodes. The two were shot out of the moving train, and Adam kept protecting her as they rolled on the ground. They survived, and quickly pick each other up. Adam curses the humans — they must've known someone would attempt to steal the new Dust Bullets prototype going to Vale. They probably are in the city already, taken through a different method. Their only hope now is to steal it from the city itself. Lastly he asks Blake if she was okay, and with a bit of blush she says, "I'm fine."

…

Fast cut to weeks, maybe a month later, and we see Blake practicing with her sword in a dark room. She's training alone, until Adam enters the room without her noticing. He's not wearing his mask, and here his face is… normal. He looks like a completely normal person, aside from the very small horns on his forehead. He has blue eyes that don't match his red hair at all. And weirdest of all, he looks joyful for once. Blake is happy to see him, smiling as he calls out her name.

"You're getting better. I don't remember teaching you that much" Adam said.

"We don't spend that much time together as we used to." Blake replied.

"It's good that you don't need me. If you're strong enough to defend yourself, then I'm happy." Adam finished. Her glances and gentle walk towards him kinda sells this idea, at least during this time, that Blake has clear romantic feelings for him. But in his friendly eyes and smile, we can also realize that he doesn't see her the same way. Though he came all cheery, he has a new mission for her. A really dangerous and important mission. Adam fought the queen against the idea, but it was no use.

Blake's next mission would be to infiltrate Beacon castle as a new academy student, and then pass information to the White Fang. All the teachings and information contained there should make the White Fang stronger, smarter and more active. As she hears it, Blake is completely opposite to the idea. She didn't want to spend any second near those goddamn humans — it made her sick to her stomach just to think about it. Unfortunately, Blake was at the perfect age, had an awakened Aura, and was good at the art of deception. Adam believed in her. He apologizes that she has to do this, but reinforces that it would be great for their cause. At his personal request, it seems like Blake can't help but to oblige.

At that moment she even tried making out with him, but he steps back before she gets the chance. "Thanks… first we will have to craft you fake papers, a background, and a new name. I'll talk to you later. I'm counting on you, Bee." Adam said. Blake just stands there in silent apathy, and we can feel that she's really hurt to not have her feeling reciprocated. It also gives insight on why Blake is so terrible at conveying her emotions… because she got friendzoned really hard.

…

The next flashback would follow her on the finale of Volume I. As the girls went to stop the Dust deal of Torchwick, Blake went after the White Fang captain to confront him. She dashes against him and gets locked in a sword clash. But at that moment she says something that is clearly code, and makes the man realize she is also White Fang. She tells him that police are on the way, and he doesn't have much time left. She promised to slow them down while he takes his boys and flees from the docks. The man then messages his allies through the intercom, and Blake turns her back on the fleeing criminal.

…

Next flashback would make another big reveal. Apparently the way Blake used to leak information was by renting erotica novels from Tuxson's library. She would then write about her friends or the teachings of the class on paper sheets hidden in those books, while pretending to be reading. And so she would give the books back to the library, and the White Fang recovered her notes inside the books. This reveals that she wasn't actually reading porn at all… sometimes, at least.

…

The next flashback would be set after their battle with Emerald and Mercury in volume II, where she mysteriously made a phone call but we never got to see what it was about.

She called one of Adam's burner numbers that he gave her, and he answered. Blake immediately questioned if he was okay, but she was relieved to know nothing had happened. Blake came clean about her discontent with the White Fang suddenly becoming way more violent and dangerous for the past month. Adam says it's only natural that they become more aggressive as the crimes against the Faunus grew. That's why they exist after all — to be the equalizers. That's the only way humans will learn to respect them, or so he said. Tuxson's death was a message exclusively for them, so they have to answer equally.

In the end, Blake warned Adam to watch his back and start searching. She managed to interrogate the assassins of Tuxson, and find out that the person who hired them was from the White Fang itself. Whoever it was, Adam needed to catch him, and make him spill the beans about why he would do that to his own people. Adam promises to look into it, and so Blake turns off the phone. Adam breaks the phone in half, and Blake is none the wiser that the one who hired Emerald and Mercury… was Adam himself, showcased by a suitcase of cash that was lying on his table, right next to photos of Emerald and Mercury. He knew that would cause turmoil, and it would ultimately justify his violent actions moving forward.

…

Finally we arrive at the flashback of Blake and Adam's fight at the end of volume IV, but unlike the first three, we already saw this, so just skip.

The flashbacks serve the purpose of showing how much Blake changed her mind from evil to good, and how she slowly transitioned from racist spy to actual comrade, while Adam never changed. He was still the same person at his core — his hatred for humans was always apparent. Blake was the only one to change… and now she sees that her past was nothing but a bunch of lies and indoctrination. She was a mere pawn in a game, and in the end she got all of her real friends and allies nearly killed. She betrayed her cause, her old friends and new ones. What she did was unforgivable, so it was time to cut herself off from everyone she hurt. Blake goes ahead, picks up her scroll phone and her black bow in both hands, and lets it fall to the ocean below. Both the symbol of her mission, and the only thing still connecting her to Ruby, Weiss and Yang…

And so they are gone. The splash sound was a bit louder than expected.

With that, Blake wanders off inside the ship.

Blake doesn't say anything for this entire section, but through information given by the background characters' conversations, we figured this is a ship of refugees going to the South Islands, in the hopes of finding a home While Vale is rebuilt. It's mostly women, old folk and children who don't have room in the shelters, and can't help with the work. As she walks around, Blake eventually bumps into the captain of the ship. He gets confused by Blake's presence, since he doesn't remember seeing her enter with everyone else. He figured she sneaked in, and he was right, but ultimately he wasn't mad about it since this was a crisis. Some people lost it all, and he can't be greedy in a moment like this.

The old man is skeptical about taking all these people to Menagerie, knowing the White Fang is there, and knowing that they did some evil shit just a few months ago. Blake doesn't try to defend them this time. She finally realizes that what the White Fang wants is not good, not even for the Faunus they are allegedly fighting for. They just wanted power, and nothing else. Finally the old man spots her katana and figures she's a Huntress. It was a good sign, since this is the first time his ship was so packed with people and not containers. He's worried what those sea Grimm might do. In the meanwhile, there were a few jobs that a super strong warrior could do for the old man.

Blake sneaks away from view just as he says that, because it's funny.

...

After a day of travel later, the captain was able to spot the island from a distance. They would arrive soon… but just then, the ship was attacked.

A motherfucking sea serpent Grimm.

The weather was still a shitty gray when the battle began, and unfortunately Blake seemed to be alone in this fight. The monster would wrap itself around the ship to try and kill the people inside. Every time Blake got the chance to strike the thing, it would hide in the water again. If she fell in the water, she was a goner. The battle was hard, but eventually she received help. A hooded man jumped and attacked the Sea Serpent with her. His hood flies off, and we can see it's Sun Wukong. Together they decapitate the monster mid air. The two fall in the water, making the people cheer. Once they are back on deck, Blake doesn't allow Sun not even a second of admiration from the public — grabbing him by the collar and dragging him somewhere for a private talk.

She slams him against the wall and demands that he explains himself.

"You look cuter when you're angry" Sun said. Blake started unsheathing her sword and he was like, "okay-okay! Listen… I searched for you everywhere, and I spotted you just as you entered the ship. I have no idea where we are going, so I kinda regret it. The point is… The last thing Yang asked me to do was to watch over you, so that's why I'm here."

"Yang… Where is she?!" Blake asked.

"She saved you from that guy, with the mask and the horns. She wanted to fight him alone. I shouldn't have left but I did, I'm sorry… We haven't found her since, just… a bit of her blood… or rather, a lot." Sun replied, getting sad as he remembered.

Blake let go of him and sat on the floor against the wall. "And the others?"

"Well… Ruby has been… sleeping, for a while. And Weiss was sent back home along with everyone else from Atlas, but I'm not that sure how that happened though… And Pyrrha… master Leo doesn't want to tell me anything about it, but she's just… gone… But hey, everyone else from your class survived, and I'm sure that in no time, Yang and Pyrrha will…-!" Sun stopped.

He looked to the side and saw that Blake hid her face in between her legs, and was clearly crying. That sight shocked him deeply, because up until now Blake has simply been invincible. Her expression never faltered to anything — always calm and collected even in desperate fights. That was actually what made her so attractive to him in the first place. This is the first moment of weakness that Blake has ever shown to her friends in the series so far.

"Hey, don't be like that-" Sun was saying.

He was reaching out for her, but she slapped his hand away. "Don't! Just… leave me alone… It's all my fault… They are dead because of me… I killed them…"

"Woah woah woah, don't say that stuff!" Sun said, sitting in front of her.

"I knew about the invasion, Sun… I should've said something… anything… but I was afraid… I didn't want to betray anyone… I didn't want anyone to die… If I hadn't waited until the last minute… we could've done something to stop it, but… I just couldn't!" Blake spoke through her tears.

"Hey… what are you saying?" Sun asked.

"I'm… I'm from the White Fang, Sun…

For that whole year, all I did was pass information from Beacon to the White Fang. Information about everything and everyone… even you. Their soldiers got stronger… they were able to craft the perfect plans of attack thanks to what I gave them… and they killed hundreds… Because of me… I don't deserve… forgiveness…!" Blake said, as she puts her shaking hand on her sword and starts to pull. The visual and the dialogue gives the idea she is about to commit suicide. However, Sun inches forward and holds her hand in place, so she can't draw. They look at each other in silence.

"I just have one question for you…" he said with a serious face that is almost bizarre to see in him, since he's so joyful and eccentric all the time. After a long stare down between the two, he asks, "Did you tell them I was gorgeous… or just pretty?"

…

It was such an anticlimactic thing to say. Blake's grief quickly sparks into fury. "What the hell is wrong with you?! Didn't you hear what I just said?!"

"I did, but… I don't really care." Sun said, scratching the back of his head.

"What?!"

"Listen, I'm not a judge and I hate gossiping, so I don't care about your dirty little secrets! You hang out with bad people, you mess up, stuff happens! If you want to do something about it, then go ahead! I'll just be here to make sure you're okay. I'm a man of my word." Sun finished.

"…You don't hate me?" Blake said.

"Let me tell you – Aslan, Jobi and master Leo are all big douchebags! If I can forgive them for all that they put me through every day, I can certainly forgive you as well. And besides, I'm literally your only friend right now, so I'm THAT much more important! I can't allow myself to hate you. That's what Ruby, Yang and Weiss would've wanted me to do!" Sun finished with a big smile.

Blake shakes her head, shrugs her tears and walks off. She's outraged by something she doesn't fully understand, but she remarks, "You're an idiot!" as she leaves.

Sun replies with "So I've been told!"

...

Thanks to its two Stowaway Huntsmen, the ship is finally able to arrive in Menagerie. The wooden dock was extremely simple and even frail looking. Menagerie looked like a beautiful place, but not advanced at all. The refugees come out in a big wave to the pier, but the small Faunus guard force guides them to somewhere else, and they will be sheltered until arrangements are made. Blake and Sun are allowed to enter the city freely for being Faunus. Sun immediately recognizes the name Menagerie, but he never truly knew what it was. He soon was able to realize that everyone on the streets were Faunus — some more normal than others. Here Blake gives us a simple but perfect exposition about what Menagerie is.

The island was essentially given as a safe place for Faunus hundreds of years ago. It's not very big, but there's not many of them out there anyway. The Faunus who didn't win the genetic lottery like she and Sun will eventually come here at some point in their lives. A place where they can live with other people who also might look a bit bizarre. It's here that we see Faunus that are more animal than human. Sun even gets caught ogling a girl who had most of her body covered in fur, and was almost naked, but was otherwise a normal human. Since this is not an edgy X-men comic, we won't deal with any horribly mutated person — Faunus mostly just looks cute and not disgusting. Those who have full body mutations like Velvet or Jobi seem to be commonplace here. Blake ends her exposition by stating this was actually the place she was born, and where she grew up.

Eventually Sun asks where they are going, and Blake only has one place left to go after all this. She knows that she won't be welcomed there at all, but at the very least she wanted to set the record straight with her parents. Even now as she walks, she keeps being haunted by those memories. She feels like pulling her ears off from cringe as she hears the voices of the past — when she cursed them and made her mom cry. Blake was slowing down, nearly losing the courage to even meet them. They kept walking and walking until Sun got bored, and demanded to know where her house was. She kept pointing higher and higher… until she pointed to the house at the top of everything. There was a little plateau at the end of the city, and there was a big house up there. The biggest house in fact.

"Wow! Your family is rich?!" Sun asked.

"In a sense…"

Sun then rushed ahead at super speed, excited to meet her parents. Blake was taking her sweet time on purpose, but now she has to rush after him.

...

Soon enough they arrive at the front door. Sun hits the big door knocker twice, making a loud sound. They start hearing big and heavy steps approaching from behind the door. And so a giant opens the big door, forcing Sun to look up to see him eye to eye. It was a man with a long beard and hair, wearing a purple coat. He looked down upon them, seemingly pissed. "What do you…!"

His eyes slide slightly to the side, and he sees a girl with black hair and ears behind the boy. His angry gaze immediately changes. Blake pushes the scared Sun to the side, still looking down in shame. She remains in silence for a few more seconds, and then she spoke. "I know I don't have the right to be here… after what I said… after what I did… Father."

"(THIS GIANT IS HER FATHER?!)" Sun thought, and his face conveyed the exact same shocking realization. Her father was Ghira, the chieftain of the whole island.

"You don't have to hear me if you don't want to. I'm not here to bother you. I just wanted to say… You were right… about everything… I was… I was foolish, and I was angry, and… I shouldn't have run away from home… I shouldn't have joined the White Fang… I should've listened… I hope that you can forgive your stupid daughter one day." Blake finished.

She turned around to quickly leave, but then Ghira held her. It looked like he was about to hit her for a moment, so Sun held his weapon and was ready to strike him first. But in the end… he simply pulled Blake for a hug, lifting her off the ground. The gigantic man was so overcome with emotion that, even as his face remains rock solid and serious, he couldn't help but cry as he embraced his only child for the first time in five years.

"Forgive you…? What's to forgive?… You came back… I can't believe it…" Her father said. His long beard and cushy robes made her feel like she was being grasped by a marshmallow, and she could feel directly in his Aura all the love and affection coming directly from his soul. His Aura was sparking with love, and it made Blake cry. By here the sweet and wistful soundtrack is popping the fuck off, and even Sun is getting caught up in the moment.

"Ghira… Ghira, what was that?! Who is it?" a voice echoed from inside the house. A short cat woman then walked in from behind Ghira. The giant gently puts Blake down on the ground, and presents their missing daughter to his beautiful wife. It was Blake's mother, Kali. The woman immediately covers her mouth as she slightly gasps in surprise — her cat ears lower down. Of course, it doesn't take her more than a few seconds to also start crying.

"Mom…" Blake said, and so Kali quickly approached her, and started loudly crying as she hugged her as tight as she could.

"Blake… my Blake… my Blake is home!" she kept repeating. Eventually Kali backed away, and caressed Blake's face. "You… you grew so tall… and healthy… and beautiful…"

"Why… Why do you still love me?" Blake mumbled through her tears.

Kali hugged her again. Ghira did the same, kneeling down so he could hug his two most precious things together. Blake couldn't understand. They should be furious with her. She ran away and never sent so little as a letter to them in several years. She doesn't deserve this love. Ghira then spoke, "Oh, Blake… Why would I be angry?… Why would I hate you?… Never… Never!… I was just sad… because I thought I had lost you forever."

Everyone was crying by that point, even Sun. It's here, at one of the most beautiful moments of the whole series, that we conclude this section of Blake's story.

Commentary (spoilers): The absolute hardest part of Blake's ongoing narrative is to find a way to not make her detestable in retrospect. Thus far she never did anything evil, and by a certain point she was just as much of a hero as the other three. But her inaction, even if she was given no clue on how to prevent the invasion, still makes it feel like it was her fault. I don't plan to have any characters treat her as if she did nothing wrong; especially herself. It's better off left ambiguous, as something ONLY Blake can truly deal with, and ONLY Blake can atone for. That is essentially her character arc for this volume; how to atone for all of those she hurt. She will face direct and indirect consequences for her actions, I promise you this much. For now, she'll have to deal with a different plot that she just found herself in.

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Now that we set the frame for the four girls, we can explain the timeline a little bit better. Chronologically, Yang would be the first one, as she wakes up from her wounds in a few days. Blake also left Vale right after the fall with most of the refugees, and also specifically before Ruby woke up. Weiss was taken immediately to Atlas, and seems to have spent a few weeks in her home already. Ruby is the last of the timeline, as she stayed a month or more in the rebuild of Vale city, and her mission with Qrow should last a little less than a week. What that means is that Ruby's story is the last of the four, and the other three are happening in the past. I have no idea how to make that clear in the show.

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Well, we have four heroes on the move… who else to talk about, if not our main villain? It's not a long scene, I promise you.

At the end, after all these sections concluded, we get a scene of Cinder. The manticore Grimm is still flying her around in the night sky, but Pyrrha is nowhere to be found. The flying beast lands on the ground, and so Cinder walks over. She was standing right in front of a forest with thousands of curly trees. Several different Grimm appear from the shadows, but they don't attack her. She silently pulls the blue relic out of her belt and wields it forward. We can see that the blue glow was sparkling randomly, but it grew more active than it was before.

Cinder says, "It must be around here…"

More and more Grimm were surrounding her. She told them, "find it. Search every corner, behind every tree and under every rock. We have no time, GO!"

And so all the Grimm jump into action, running through the forest. We have no idea what she's looking for, but she seems to be in a hurry, and is frustrated. As hundreds of Grimms continue running inside the forest, the scene concludes. It serves as a minor buildup, but it probably doesn't mean anything for this volume other than hype for the villain.

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Now… where do I start this again? Maybe Weiss, since she has the best cliffhanger.

We pick up literally right after her disownment from the Schnee family. She is basically crying herself awake, but spends most of the time looking out through her giant window and seeing the shattered moon. She is still feeling sorry for herself, and wondering what the hell she is going to do. Eventually she decides to pack up her things and leave into the night. She doesn't plan on giving Jacques the pleasure of watching her go.

We cut away from her to see Jacques drinking alone in his study, being illuminated by the fireplace. He was still making phone calls and trying to buy the newspapers to not write a story about his daughter. He is naturally outraged by her blackmail costs, but he has no choice. The election is a month away, and he can't allow his image to be tainted before it happens, since he's a candidate. As he turns off the phone, he throws the glass of margarita against the wall.

We then cut to a very strange camera angle, showing the ceiling of the huge room. Jacques is pacing back and forth around the room, and eventually, once he passes over the camera for the last time… a figure appears in the ceiling, like a ghost. It was standing on top of the huge book shelf. The camera continues changing, showing this dark figure getting ever closer to Jacques without him noticing, until it was right behind him. By the curvaceous and small frame we can identify it as female, but it's hard to tell since she's completely covered in iron armor; head to toes. Her helmet is thick and the visor is small and dark, and she doesn't say a word. Her mannerism and silence imply that it is nothing but another android robot. Jacques finally sees her, and just stares at her in shocked silence. Suddenly, the fireplace dies out.

Let us call this new character "Iron Maiden".

We immediately cut to Weiss as she was packing her mallet bag, at the same time the Iron Maiden strikes. Her Aura flairs up, and she immediately senses that something is wrong. Someone powerful is nearby. She looks around, but the threat seems to be somewhere else. Weiss grabs Myrtnaster from under her bed and rushes out of the room. She runs through the dark corridors, and hears sounds coming from her father's study.

She barges through the door… to see a harrowing sight.

Her father was face first on the ground — a pool of blood slowly forming around him. The iron maiden was standing there, about to deliver the final strike with what looks to be a metal pike. Weiss suddenly gets a burst of adrenaline, and so she tackles the iron maiden away before she could strike Jacques again. The two fight one versus one inside the study, and the iron maiden proves to be equal to Weiss at combat. Eventually the fight goes outside by breaking through the huge window. It turns out Jacques wasn't dead yet, and he's able to crawl closer to his table and press a hidden panic button. And so he passes out.

Weiss and the iron maiden continue to fight in the garden for a while. Weiss could hear this thing saying weird stuff — it was repeating "kill Jacques Schnee" over and over again, like a zombie with a robotic filter on her voice. It gives Weiss the impression that it is another android robot like the ones she fought before. The iron maiden was able to deliver a glaring slash to her midriff with the pike, staining Weiss's clothes with blood from the cut. The fight was about to heat up… until the iron maiden felt something.

She looks away for a while. She says, "don't let anyone see you" again and again… and then starts to run away. Weiss chased her for a second, but then decided to tend to her father. She jumps back inside the study room — her blue dress is marked with blood and her sword is in hand. Sirens can already be heard in the back. She tries shaking Jacques awake, but he had lost too much blood already. Just then she hears the door creaking, and looks up.

Whitley was there, looking at her in fear, slightly putting his body behind the door.

Weiss looks at herself and realizes she's covered in blood. "This… this isn't what it looks like! Whitley!" She says.

Before they could explain, suddenly the entire police force of Atlas city arrives at the mansion. Officers burst through the front doors and the garden. Weiss turns around and sees a light blinding her. A small flying ship was putting a bright spotlight inside the room. The officers arrive at the study, and they see Jacques bleeding on the ground. The culprit was clear. They point their futuristic guns at Weiss and shout, "Drop your weapon!"

"No, wait, this… this is all a misunderstanding!" Weiss said.

"I repeat, drop your weapon!" They said again.

Weiss began looking back and forth, all around her. She was quickly surrounded by dozens of soldiers. Her father looked pretty dead, and her little brother was terrified. She realizes she needs to run, and so she jumps out the window. The soldiers try shooting her, but they miss. She lands on the garden and dodges all the soldiers trying to restrain her, and starts running at super speed. The officer phoned in, "Attention all units, suspect is fleeing through the back avenue. The suspect is enhanced. I repeat, the suspect is enhanced. Call Ace Operatives immediately!"

Weiss continues running with the ship on her tail, shining a spotlight onto her. The mansion was located at the end of a lonely road, right by a steep hill. Weiss knew she wouldn't be able to shake them off in the open, but eventually she spotted the city of Atlas ahead. The road was about to take a turn to avoid a cliff, so Weiss just went ahead and jumped off the edge. The city was right underneath. We get a cool shot of her jumping head first into a jubilant city, filled with shining lights at night time. She was able to bounce off the huge buildings one by one, landing in the empty streets. The police ship tried to follow, but she moved too fast, and quickly hid in a dark alley. Weiss hides behind the trash container in the dark, and holds her breath as the ship passes by and illuminates the alleyway. Luckily it didn't spot her, so it moved along. There's a terrified look on her face, and she starts breathing heavily.

"What… what do I do?… What do I do?!"

...

The story continues in the morning of the next day. We get a cool shot of Atlas city at long last. It looks very futuristic, with over the top designs for the buildings that all try to look different and better than one another. The streets are populated by people dressed fancy for the natural cold temperature of the Atlisian mountain range, and we also see a bunch of cars, which unlike the ones from Vale, are moved unnecessarily by propulsion engines for no reason other than being expensive. This city seems to be exclusive to the high class of the nation — it even has public TVs at the corner of every street. The news channel was reporting on the assassination attempt of Jacques Schnee, by the hands of his own daughter, Weiss. Thankfully the pitiful man survived and was taken to an undisclosed location within the city where life-saving surgery is being performed. The TV lady tells how unfortunate of a situation it is that Atlas almost lost another one of it's council members (Jacques), as other two of them have also died for the past weeks (this will be important for later).

After the cheap exposition, we follow Weiss again. She was actually watching those news, but hidden in the dark alleys so then people won't see her. She breathes a sigh of relief to know her father is not dead, but now she has to focus on her own situation. She's safe for now, hidden in a garbage alleyway. It's nice symbolism that behind all the pretty lights and tall buildings, this place hides some fucking horrible filth that is scattered on the ground.

Weiss realizes that she has to appear somewhat normal in order to escape this place, but she is still wearing her fancy gala dress covered in blood, and has a glaring slash on her stomach. She tries to clean it off but it doesn't work, and she can't walk out there in the cold with just her underwear. She looks up and sees a long puffer coat, hanging by the window of an apartment. With a super jump she is able to steal it, and although it smells terrible, she has no other choice. She rips her long bloody dress apart and makes it look like a mini skirt — perhaps a little too revealing. Lastly she undoes her ponytail and lets her long hair out, covering her scarred eye, and hides Myrtnaster inside the coat.

She was looking like a completely different person by the end. An untidy girl with a big coat, but with her legs left bare to the cold — a little uncouth for Atlas City standards, but it will pass. Weiss's only possible plan is to leave the city and return to Vale, evading anything on her way. And so she walked out of the alley, and calmly made her way through the streets. A few people spotted her and laughed at her clothes, but thankfully they didn't recognize her. Any time she would see a camera or a police officer she would either turn away or use her speed to hide. She was able to cover a lot of ground, but eventually… things turned shit.

Through the entire sequence of her walking alone, at many points we can see the Iron maiden, hiding above the buildings and in the dark; almost impossible to notice outside of youtube videos pointing it out. In the end she comes to strike. Weiss was a dozen blocks away from the train station, and from there she would quickly leave Atlas City and arrive at Mantle — the neighboring city.

But as she walked through the dark alley alone, that sharp pike of metal descended from sky, right towards her.

She notices it at the right time and slightly dodges it, grazing her coat. The iron maiden soon jumps down with another weapon, trying to kill her as fast as she can, but is unsuccessful. Weiss fights her back, quickly drawing her sword. This time she doesn't hold back and immediately uses her Semblance. The Iron Maiden also shows a neat trick, having the ability to fly in the air. Her attacks become more vicious and she is capable of evading Weiss's ice creations. The maiden is speaking again, "no witnesses… no witnesses…"

Their fights become so destructive and noticeable that eventually a passing couple calls the authorities. The iron maiden disappears again before she is seen, and so Weiss needs to run. In her rush, she eventually gets caught by the security cameras, and they immediately activate android soldier to go attack Weiss. She easily slashes them apart, but they call an even bigger threat. Actual Ace-Ops from the Atlas army were on her tail now (Elm and Clover, for example). I have no idea how she will supposedly shake these guys off, but my pitch is that she uses her summon power to create a fake Grimm to distract them.

Fighting through a battalion of robots, she eventually reaches the train station underground. It cuts right through the mountain in order to arrive at Mantle faster, and now it seems to only carry cargo. She managed to sneak in and jump on top of the train, just as it started moving. She takes a firm hold until she is able to get accustomed to the speed, since this was a bullet train. It was dark, but safe. The only light came from the wagon's red warning lights, as it went through a long dark tunnel. She just needed to hold on until-

"no witnesses…" Weiss hears again, feeling a chill down her spine.

She turns around and sees that the iron maiden followed her all the way there. And so she is forced to fight her, again. The maiden continues getting better and better in fighting, or perhaps Weiss is doing worse as she gets tired and sleep deprived. They had to also dodge the ceiling of the tunnel, as it would get smaller and rockier randomly. Nevertheless, the fight ends with Weiss lying on her back, as she was beaten and wounded severely — slashed several times. The iron maiden prepared her iron pike to finish her off, but Weiss had one final trick. Myrtnaster was thrown off her hand and sunk into the train roof, but just then she used her Semblance to create an ice sword by her hand. With the last of her strength, she blocked the iron maiden's next attack and kicked her away. The android stumbled back, but it didn't receive any damage.

Luckily, Weiss was smart.

The train ahead was about to enter the deeper tunnel, so the ceiling was about to drop. The iron maiden didn't realize it, until she was literally hit in the face by a wall of stone at full speed. And so she gets knocked out of the train — left behind in the dark tunnel. Weiss was lying on her back, and so she was able to fit perfectly in between the short space of the wagon and the ceiling. For the first time she thanks god for not having a huge breast like Yang or her sister. Once she had enough space, she uses the ice sword to cut her way inside the wagon, grab Myrtnaster, and remain inside until the train arrives. She's seriously wounded, but free.

...

The train eventually stops at the other end, and thus Mantle. If Atlas city was that futuristic city meme, then Mantle would be apocalypse Boston. The streets were tiny, the buildings were all glued together, and everything was square and ugly. The train station was in the open, so Weiss was able to sneak away while they unloaded the cargo. Police were around the area, so it was clear they were still searching for her. She sneaks past everything, and so the lonely girl limps away into the ugly streets — beaten and bloody. The streets were crowded, and everyone looked so miserable that they didn't even bat an eye on her. She walks into the alleyway, and can finally sit down to rest.

...

"Weiss?"

She hears someone call her name, and so she looks up. Of all damn people, it was Penny.

She was standing right in front of Weiss with hands to the side. She leans down 90 degrees to look at her face closely. "You don't look so good…"

Weiss had no more strength to fight, so she had to talk her way out. "They got you back together, Penny? Good… I'm glad you're okay."

Penny started poking her fingers together and looked down. "Listen, Weiss… everyone has been looking for you after the news. My orders are to bring you in if I find you…"

"Do you think I would kill my own father, Penny?" Weiss said, looking up. The two glared at each in silence for a while. Weiss continues, "There was someone else in our mansion that night. An assassin attacked my father and I just tried to defend him. It's an android, but it is much, much stronger than any other I've seen. Now it's coming after me. It almost killed me on the way here… you have to believe me."

"I believe you! I really do, but… I can't help you. I don't have anywhere to hide you, and the police will be searching the city. I can try to distract them, or find the true culprit you're talking about, but until then… I fear that you'll be on your own. I'm really sorry!" Penny said.

"That's okay… I can take care of myself… Thank you so much, Penny." Weiss said, slowly lifting herself off the ground and walking away into the dark alley with a limp. Penny just silently watches her go with a face of worry. Though the whole world seems to be against her, at least Weiss found once again the strength to move forward. And with that, we're done with another section.

Commentary (spoilers): Every character has three acts to their stories; except Yang and Ruby who share an act together and thus have 4. With that, we're just one act away from finishing Weiss. But don't worry, her final act is really big; It's practically it's own new story. Let me note that I'm still not totally sure about the time frame, so if by any chance you spot a plot hole involving the dates, then it's likely a mistake. This whole part takes place all in the same morning. Weiss's story is certainly the most chaotic and difficult in all of this; a complete contrast to the original. But despite that, I still can't point my finger on which of the three new plot lines I liked rewriting the most (except for Blake, I didn't rewrite anything about her). I also figured that, since I'm in Atlas, I might as well use all the Atlas characters I can muster. I also introduced ahead of time both Watts and the iron maiden, a new character that if you have an IQ above a potato, you already figured out who it is. By now you must be wondering how and why, but all answers will unfortunately only come in volume VI. Here she is Weiss's recurring villain, and we don't go into much depth about it.

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Now let's go back to Yang.

Her second act starts with her looking around in awe. She is inside Vernal's tent, and is complimenting all the little details and cute things she kept in the ceiling and shelves. Every time she pointed out something, Vernal went ahead and took it away, trying to displease Yang as much as possible. The tent was small and only had one bed, so Vernal extended a blanket over the floor and threw a small cushion for Yang to use as a pillow. It was as far away from her own bed as possible. "There" she says. Yang kept looking at her until she replied, "What? Not good enough for you? Well, deal with it, outsider!"

"Nah, this will do just fine." Yang said, throwing herself on the ground like a brick. She's tough enough to find comfort in a nail bed, anyway. Vernal goes to her comfy ass bed and covers herself, turning away from Yang. But still, Yang was up for a nightly talk. "So… Vernal Branwen… that's a strange name to have." Yang said.

"What does it matter to you? Just shut up and sleep!" Vernal said.

"Sorry… I just want to learn a little bit more about you… since we're related."

Vernal suddenly turns to look at her. "We are? How come?"

"Well, Raven is my mom… so I guess that also makes me a Branwen." Yang said.

Vernal clearly didn't know this information, but immediately doubted it. She never saw Yang in her whole life, and it makes sense, since Yang has never seen Raven in her whole life either. She lived the last nineteen years in Vale City — a name that Vernal recognized, but didn't seem to know anything about. Vernal also comes to reveal that she spent most of her life in the wild. She wasn't actually born a Branwen, but was adopted by Raven after her family died in a Grimm attack. She took the surname of the tribe as a sign of gratitude and respect for being raised there for the last seven years.

As the conversation continued, Vernal grew more and more interested in the modern world, and how things work in civilization. She was asking more and more questions about it, and slowly we can see her drop the guard she put up before. Yang's friendly and joyful nature has snared her in. By the way she's careful about what she says, we also get this feeling that she isn't accustomed to friendliness. Eventually she asks the last golden question.

"So… you have a tribe back home too, right?" Vernal asked.

"We don't call it tribe, but yeah… I have one." Yang said, And suddenly she started being bombarded with memories of her team, her other friends, the teachers, and her father. Her smile disappeared, and she got up. "I need to talk with Raven."

She left the tent and walked out in the camp at night time. It was quiet and windy. Raven was outside, smoking another fat cigar and looking out into the stars alone. It seems like substance abuse is a common theme among her and Qrow — both being unimaginably broken people. Yang approaches her in silence and she asks, "What do you want?"

"Listen, mom, I… Thank you for saving me. I'm grateful that I could meet you, even if it was just once. I would like to come back and spend more time with you, but… I need to go home. I have to see how everyone's doing." Yang said.

"I told you already, they are fine." Raven replied.

"I know that, I can feel it, but… still."

Raven put out her cigar against her arm bracelet and shoved it down her rack for later. She turned to Yang with a serious face and spoke up. "Listen to me… You are my daughter. My only daughter. I never wanted to leave you behind, but I also knew that I couldn't drag you to the path I was headed. You spent nineteen years with your father… and now you want to leave me after a single day?"

"I know- I know! I don't mean it like that-" Yang said.

"Either way… do as you please. But if you're leaving now, you're on your own. Take your stuff and go."

"What?! But-! But I don't know where we are! I can't go into the wild alone!" Yang replied.

"Then I guess you're stuck here. Ask whoever you want, but they won't help. Nobody here respects you. You will have to go alone, and good luck surviving the Grimm. Here they are twice as worse than in Vale." Raven finished. She walked back into her big tent as Yang followed, but she stopped before entering. "But… three weeks… in three weeks I'll take you back home. That's a promise. You just have to endure some time with your mother, and then you can go see your friends. Do we have a deal?"

Yang kept staring at her for a while. There was a clear sadness in her face, probably because she wasn't expecting Raven to be so cruel and cold. But in the end she had to make a decision. She looks away and says, "I guess I don't have much of a choice… Alright. Deal."

Yang starts walking away, but before she left there was one last private question to ask — one that suddenly popped out of her memory. "Mom… there was a record of you in Vale castle, and it said that you've been a renegade for the last nineteen years… why is that?"

Raven thought for a second and then said:

"I didn't want to waste my life as a pawn to an endless war… Is that enough for you?"

"… Sure." Yang said, going back into Vernal's tent.

...

Yang woke up the next day in much better shape. She took off her bandages and saw a few brand new scars over her naked body, and had no idea how they ended up there. She looked contemplative in the mirror for a while, but in the end she still looked hot, so she shrugged it off and dressed up. Outside she immediately sees everyone preparing for something with their weapons. She asks Raven if there was an attack or something, but it was the exact opposite. "It's time for breakfast," Raven said.

Basically all the members of the tribe would go out into the wild, find food, and bring it back. Raven said that she was part of the tribe now, and if she wanted to eat with them, she had to bring something back. Yang can feel a pain in her stomach — god knows for how long she's been out, so it's only natural she's hungry.

And so it begins a rat race, which is comedic in nature. It would follow Yang running around in the forest to find food, but each of her attempts was thwarted by a different member of the tribe who arrived first. It also wasn't made easy due to Yang's complete inexperience with the task. Each time she failed to catch a meal, she would get visibly weaker and more hungry. There's also a few moments of tension, as she is forced to hide from a passing pack of Grimm who were transiting through the forest. The Grimm of the forbidden north are much more bizarre than any other she had seen — they no longer resemble imitations of wild animals, and now just look like twisted and unexplainable monsters. Just from their appearance, Yang knew she couldn't fight them alone.

It was almost noon and Yang was famished. Eventually Vernal finds her lying on the ground, and she mocks Yang for taking so long. Yang begs for her to share a bit of what she gathered, but she couldn't. Vernal was ordered to not help Yang, but now she took pity on her. Yang continued calling her a friend, it seemed to once again persuade her.

And so Vernal took her down to the waterfall and the river bed down the forest. There she taught Yang how to catch the fish running through the stream, and thanks to her help Yang managed to catch her first meal of the day. Vernal tells her to wrap it up and take the fish back to the camp and cook them, only to look again and see Yang eating the fish raw — disgustingly and hilariously. Once again, Yang continues to win her over by validating her help and being thankful, which seems alien to Vernal thanks to this harsh upbringing.

Yang's journey has been too sweet and comedic so far, so I need a bit of action. As the two were talking, one of those bizarre Grimm from earlier was sneaking closely. The second it saw Vernal with her back turned, it jumped to attack. Vernal realized too late, and was barely able to draw her sword when the creature slashed her arm. Naturally Yang immediately jumped to action and squared off against the huge Grimm barehanded. The monster had a clear level of intelligence, so it wasn't as easy as it always was. She did eventually manage to kill it by hopping on its back and using all her rage strength to choke it to death with both her arms, eventually ripping its head off.

Yang immediately took Vernal back to camp, where everyone was reunited around a campfire to eat. Raven had found a giant boar that was now roasting in the flames. Though Yang was worried for the little girl, Raven simply asked, "Who's fault was that, Vernal?"

Vernal stepped up and said, "It was mine, ma'am… I wasn't paying attention. It won't happen again."

"Good." Raven said, going back to her meal.

Vernal went back to her tent and grabbed a box of first aids to treat her own wound. Yang came right behind and offered to help, but Vernal said, "No! Just leave me be. I messed up. If I can't take care of myself then I'm just a weak link to the tribe. It's my job to fix it-"

Suddenly Yang stood in front of Vernal and slapped her in the face. It stunned her, but it barely hurt. Yang immediately grabbed the bandages and herb mix out of her hands and started treating the wound herself. She was saying, "Don't say stupid things like that, damn it… You're just a kid. I'm not just going to walk away while you're bleeding."

"You…! You! Why do you keep doing these things?" Vernal asked.

"Raven said I was part of the tribe now, right? Fine by me. But most importantly, I told you that you are my friend now, whether you like it or not. And from where I come from, this is what friends are supposed to do. I watch your back, you watch mine. Friends, family, tribe — it doesn't matter, it should always be like this. Did I make myself clear?" Yang said, coming in with a serious face and the harsh mom energy. Even if it was harsh, it was still full of love and care, and even Vernal could feel that. She sat quietly while Yang patched up her arm. "Done… are you feeling alright?"

"Yes… or no… I don't know." Vernal said. Yang then surprised her again with a kiss on the forehead that left her really confused. "H-hey! Stop doing this weird stuff!"

Yang walked off. "I'm gonna roast the fish, do you want some?"

Feeling a strange array of emotions, Vernal simply stood up and followed. It was so strange and sudden, but Yang was giving her a dose of true and unconditional love — the likes of which she was probably never given before, where only Yang could offer to someone she just met. Something is changing within this little girl, and it's very clear.

...

What follows this is a montage of time passing for Yang.

Those three weeks went flying. Yang's time would be split into basic survival, dealing with the shit of the other members, bonding with her mother in weird ways, and mostly being a big sister to Vernal. Raven seemed to have the same tendency for random outbursts of anger, and a displease for people touching her hair — mom and daughter weren't so different when it came down to it. This montage shows how Yang got better and sharper with time, developing skills that undoubtedly made her stronger. Soon she was outdoing the more experienced tribe members in both hunting and fighting Grimm out of the campgrounds.

As time passed, she and Vernal kept talking more and more, until the girl always smiled just from seeing Yang. Their nights in the tent were filled with stories and depictions of Yang's past adventures, her friends back home, and also the modern things that Vernal had no idea existed. Their beds got closer and closer to one another as the days went. In that time, Yang would also make an effort to teach her a few of the things she knew about combat, and soon enough, Vernal grew to trust Yang with anything. Yang even nicknamed her Vinnie.

In three weeks, that forteen year old girl suffered a complete change in attitude — behaving less like Raven and more like Yang. Even Raven noticed that, but instead of her usual apathy, she seems to be annoyed by that factor. Another important thing to note is that, as the time progresses, Yang's basic orange tank top and black pants get switched to more and more pieces of animal hides and ripped red cloth — a clear visual sign to her engrossment within the tribe.

So yeah we need a hot tribal outfit for Yang. She got a few pieces of armor, her previous clothes became tattered, her new brown jacket has several dirt spots and cuts, and she got a red scarf instead of the purple one she usually had. The most important piece of the whole design is the half skirt made of leopard hide (to keep the color scheme of yellow and black).

...

Eventually the three weeks came to an end, and even if those twenty days were awesome, Yang knew she had to go. On that final night, when everyone was drinking and talking smack to each other around the campfire, Yang took the time to thank each and everyone for the things she learned, and also the off screen jokes that happened. People of the tribe seem to respect her now, and even play off with her.

Once everyone went to sleep, Yang met again with Raven in front of her tent, except now Raven is much less cold, and Yang plays off her dullness instead of being intimidated by it. The two go so far as to share Raven's cigar. Yang is thankful for all that happened during this time with her mother. This last week brought her an experience that she never had before. The weight of expectation was gone. There was no goal other than survival, and their own entertainment was the only thing they had to account for. It was a life of true and unbridled freedom, and now Raven doesn't seem to be as bad as she seemed at first.

But even so… Yang had another life waiting for her.

All the freedom and simple joy wasn't enough to persuade her, and that realization made Raven visibly upset. Yang begged that she fulfills the promise to bring her back, but first Raven had to try and convince her one last time. If this life seemed so perfect for Yang, why must she return? What can those other people offer Yang that Raven can't? It was a crude misunderstanding that Raven didn't get. It's not about what they have to offer — it was Yang who still had something to offer her friends back home. She once made a promise that she would never stand aside and leave her loved ones to suffer again. This life might be good, but she can't bear the thought of not being there in case her friends needed her. To convince Raven, she asked, "If I asked you to come home with me to meet everyone and leave the tribe for a month, would you do it?"

Raven only responded with, "Fair… alright. We're leaving tomorrow morning."

But Yang had one request that Raven wasn't expecting. She wanted to bring Vernal with her. Raven immediately refused — no bargaining at all. Yang tried to reasonably convince Raven that this life isn't suited for a child. Even if Vernal has her Aura awakened, she shouldn't be put through this at such an early age. She appealed to Raven's motherly sensibilities, but unfortunately she had none, not anymore. Now that Yang is asking to leave, all that friendliness quickly disappears. She looks at Yang again with those same sharp eyes of hatred and indifference. After a long back and forth, she welcomes Yang to try and persuade Vernal to leave if she can, and so Yang goes.

Vernal once again sparks up as she sees Yang entering the tent, immediately questioning what she was talking to Raven about. Vernal kept asking questions until Yang finally calmed her down, and told the truth. Yang will be leaving tomorrow… back where she belongs.

Those words visibly distraught Vernal. The discussion that follows is the same as a minute ago, except Vernal's clear sadness appeals to Yang much more than Raven's persuasion. Vernal absolutely didn't want Yang to go, now considering her the best friend she ever had. Yang is the one who knows all of her insecurities, who took care of her as a big sister against the other members of the tribe, and who showed her love. How could she just leave like this? It's not fair to her. Vernal was slowly but surely going to cry. But then, Yang proposed that they go together to Vale city. Even if it's just for a day, Yang wanted to show her the world that she spoke of, and all the friends she mentioned.

Vernal physically backs away from the suggestion. She said, "I can't! Miss Raven always said that the world hates us. They'll kill us if we go!"

"Don't be ridiculous! You never did anything wrong — I know that! No one in there would ever do you any harm. You don't have to stay in the wild forever, Vinnie… Please, come with me." Yang said, offering her hand. Vernal was clearly unsure about what to do, but soon enough it felt like she would say yes. But before that answer came… the girls heard a shout coming from outside.

"THEY GOT HIM! THEY GOT HIM, RAVEN!"

The entire camp exited their tents and saw one of its dozen members (Neil) come back with urgent news about one of the top members of the tribe. "What's wrong, Neil?" Raven asked.

"They captured Shay! I don't know how, but they did! He's going to be interrogated if we don't act now!" Neil said.

Everyone looks scared, and so Raven immediately took front. "Odion, Niko, grab all the weapons and one-day food supply. Neil, write down the details. Vernal, you're coming with. We're going to take Shay back." Those news distressed everyone, but Yang didn't know why. Raven walked up to her and explained that her return home would have to wait. If they manage to make Shay talk about what he knows, it's going to be the end of the Branwen. She asked Yang to help bring him back. Yang shakes her head in doubt and confusion, but in the end she accepts the final request of her mother.

We get a cool montage of Yang getting back her iron gauntlets, as well as the other four strongest of the tribe preparing their weapons. They all head out together, as the moonlight illuminated the path ahead. Outside of the forest enclosure and the ruins, they were surrounded by a huge savanna. They wouldn't have any problems with spotting incoming Grimm. As she ran in super speed alongside them, Yang thought, "Why… Why do I have such a bad feeling about this? What are we going to do? Who are we going to fight?"

And so, another act has been concluded.

Commentary (spoilers): Amazing how I talk longingly about what happens in one morning, but I quickly glaze over three weeks of time. Still, I can't believe that Yang is going to be the section with least amount of action. But I genuinely believe the simple tale of Yang slowly becoming a mother to someone else is a powerful thing; it's a much different bond than she has with any other friend so far. It also helps to set this amazing, real time contrast between Yang and Raven. It's also a very effective drama. Raven has this subtle need to mock Yang's life in the city, but at the same time a constant need to validate the life in the wild. Once she realized it didn't work, her demeanor towards Yang went back to square one. It's very important to note how Yang's opinion seems to be the only thing Raven cares about. It will be important for later.

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Finally, after ages, we're back with Ruby.

It all starts with a scene where we follow a Fenrir Grimm, walking alone in the woods. It suddenly starts hearing sounds, but it can't spot what it is. Then suddenly, a red blur passes by for a single frame, severing off the wolf's head. Ruby managed to kill the elder in complete stealth. The body fell on the ground, and Qrow started clapping as he leaned against a tree. He was glad that she was finally learning not to fight the Grimm head on for the sake of fun. With that the two are able to move ahead. Ruby wanted to run, but Qrow insisted on keeping a calm pace while in the wild. He takes a huge sip from his flask and walks in front as he hums a familiar song.

Qrow explains that the next stop will be the last village on the map. After that, they will be on the forbidden wild lands of the north. Ruby said, "So our mission is to find and eliminate her, right?"

Qrow gave her a side eye and then shook his head disapprovingly. "MY mission is to scout the north for the POSSIBILITY of finding her. Maybe we won't find her. Maybe we're going to the wrong place."

"Right, but if that's so… I don't get it. Why did you let me come along?" Ruby asked.

"Because you're dumb, and if I hadn't, you'd probably go on your own and get yourself killed." He said. Ruby looked angry. "I'm I wrong?" Qrow asked, and in response she stuck out her tongue and turned away. "Hmph!"

Qrow giggled and then said, "Well, besides that we have another important mission. We need to bring Yang back home."

Apparently Qrow knew damn well where she was, and there's a huge chance they'll find each other. Ruby didn't seem so optimistic anymore. Just from hearing Yang's name, her mind immediately goes back to her whole team, and all that transpired. Qrow asked, "Is there something wrong?"

"Do you think I'll see them again… eventually?" Ruby asked.

"Do you want the short answer or the real one?" Qrow asked. Ruby just kept silent and so he continued, "Listen, Ruby… I don't know any grand stories about teams solving their differences, standing the test of time, and coming back together after a huge defeat. As a matter of fact, I saw too much of the opposite… I've been there, too… and not even the greatest of all time could escape that fate… But, I don't know… maybe there's always room for the new generation to step in and prove everyone wrong. If the bond you have is powerful, then surely your friends will fight to keep it alive, just like you. And maybe one day, you can all bring each other back together. I hope that's so, but…"

"Life is not a fairy tale…" Ruby finished for him.

There was a long and awkward silence after that. Eventually Ruby comes with the golden question. "Do you miss having your old team back together, uncle Qrow?"

We cut to see Qrow's POV for a moment. His vision is wobbly and faded from the drunken stupor. Every time he blinks, he sees visions of team STRQ surrounding him, and Ruby turns into Summer for a split second — wearing a white hood instead of a red one. He blinks again and things turn normal. "Sometimes" he says, taking another sip of his bottle.

After walking a little more, the two caught a smell at the same time. Ruby didn't recognized it, but Qrow did. It was fire smoke, specifically from a Dust explosion. Qrow immediately drew his weapon and told Ruby to follow behind him, and so the two started running at super speed across the forest. Once they leave the woods, they are able to see the source of this smell.

Lillyward, the village at the frontier of Vale… has seen better days.

It looked destroyed from afar, and smoke was coming out of the burned houses. The two rushed to see the situation, but upon arrival there was no sign of Grimm, or any villagers. Black smudges on the ground reveal that Grimm were killed there. Lillyward wasn't that big, but it was still under the protection of a couple of retired Huntsmen that Qrow knew, called Samson and Dalia. They searched the wreckage and found blood in some places, but not enough to kill anyone. Supplies were gone, so the villagers seemed to have escaped whatever the fuck happened there. Eventually Qrow did come across something — a piece of red cloth that had a familiar smell. He knew who attacked this place, and so, he can conclude she is around.

He and Ruby had split up momentarily to search for clues. Though Ruby didn't find anything… she found someone. There was a man sobbing nearby. She rushed into one of the destroyed houses and searched room by room. It's a creepy and ominous scene, eventually slowing to a crawl. Ruby finds the crying person, but his wails slowly turn into a maniacal cackling. She saw him hiding in robes at the corner of the dark room. Even though it was dark, she could instantly spot the complete insanity of his smile, and the viciousness of his wide open eyes.

In the last possible moment, Ruby saw the glimmer of a blade in the dark.

And so the man dashed at her with insane speed. She was able to dodge what looked like a pincer/scissor-like blade, but the man immediately followed up with a kick to her face that sent her bursting through the wall. Ruby was thrown into the main street as the house crumbled to pieces. She didn't spot the man coming out, but he was already… right behind her. He immediately gets a slash on her arm before she could jump away. Ruby falls on her knee due to the pain, and the man quickly appeared in front of her at insane speed again. This man was simply too fast for her to keep up. He prepares to kill her, without giving her a chance to speak.

But it was at that moment that Qrow appeared.

He defended Ruby from the strike with his iconic back-sword pose. Ruby was allowed to back away, and so the assassin jumped to get some distance. He and Qrow stared at each other for a while, recognizing one another. The man was jubilant, but Qrow was dead serious. He took off his robe, and we see a tall man dressed in white gear, with pincer blades on his bracelets. He says, "There you are, there you are! Hahaha! Qrowny, old buddy, old pal! You skipped town and didn't even think about making a visit?!"

"Hey Tyrian…" Qrow said. Ruby questioned who he was, but Qrow simply shouted at her to retreat and cover that wound before she bleeds out. He can take this guy on no problem. This was all just a personal matter, and so she jumps away.

"How have you been, buddy? I can smell that you haven't quit drinking yet. You know it's bad for you, right?" Tyrian said. He spoke with a disgustingly wide smile and never blinked — the face and demeanor of pure insanity. Qrow wasn't talking back, so he felt saddened. "Oh! Excuse me, it was rude of me to not ask right away, but… who's the girl?… She looks so much like that fine, delightful mistress from back then. She smells just like her, too… Could it be?… Oh~hoho! Don't tell me you two finally had some action and you never told me! You dog!"

Qrow was still just staring at him in silent ire as he laughed maniacally again. "Is it too hard for you to leave me alone for once? I have way bigger problems than you this time."

"Please excuse me, I never meant to cause you trouble! Hahahah! I was just thinking, how wonderful it is that you still had someone else for all these years, and you never told me… But that's just delightful, isn't it? I can't even imagine how priceless it will be when I…" Tyrian's face suddenly turned serious, and so he whispered, "when I slit her throat… right in front of you… I'll pick up her head from the floor… and I'll bathe in her blood… She's so young… it must be so warm ❤… I'll make sure to never forget her scent…

This game of ours just gets better and better… right? "

...

And so… Qrow laughed.

A giggle that eventually turned into maniacal laughter. Tyrian also laughed along with him, and they kept laughing at one another for a long time. Once they stopped, Qrow said, "How long has it been, Tyrian? Twenty – maybe twenty one years now? One day you just came along, like a gum in my shoe, and we fought until one of us was done. You never explained why, and personally I never cared. We just kept fighting, over and over again, every month of every year, for the past two decades… And in that time you never won a single one of our fights, right?… Because if you had… I would be dead, correct?"

Tyrian's smile slowly faded away.

Qrow continued, "And you know, even though I won most of our fights, and even though it was my duty, I never actually tried to kill you. Because I thought… How wonderful it is… to have such a good rival? I don't think I would've gotten to this level if it wasn't for you, so for that I'm grateful… But now, however… Now you said the one thing that I can never forgive…

This game of ours… ends today."

And so Qrow prepares his weapon, either the buster sword or the scythe mode — I'll let you decide. And thus begins the masterpiece fight of the volume — the expensive one. Every Qrow versus Tyrian fight is badass across the entire series. The stakes and powers just keep getting bigger and bigger until literally the very end. I'm not doubtful about making this the big set piece fight of the volume AT ALL, because again it's a volume with very few fights and more plot.

Here we can see Qrow at his absolute strongest, fighting against someone who, despite their madness, still keeps up on the same level as him. And he is absolutely INSANE. Tyrian is laughing the entire time like he's having the time of his life. In terms of fighting, he has two pincer blades strapped to his bracelets that also can shoot a few bullet rounds. Tyrian was also a Faunus, with a scorpion stinger for a tail. He would try to use it in battle, but Qrow was wise to his shit. The two were exchanging serious blows and slashes on each other as the fight went on — staying in a constant balance of damage. Their strikes onto each other had enough force to destroy the crumbling village around them even more, and they kept jumping all around the place.

What marks the end of this long fight sequence is Ruby joining in. She quickly patched up her arm wound and helped Qrow by firing sniper shots at Tyrian from far away. Of course, Tyrian wouldn't let this slide. "Looks like mini Summer wants to play!" he said, and so he jumped after Ruby, forcing Qrow to chase. Their speed was so great that the distance between them and Ruby was easily closed, and now Ruby was forced to fight head on. Tyrian knew Qrow couldn't protect the girl and himself at the same time, and that was one of the decisive factors to give him the advantage. He focused on Ruby, knowing Qrow would take hits in her place. Ruby was also quickly becoming enraged, as she was constantly tossed off the fight by Qrow but couldn't bear to stay away and let him get wounded.

The fight eventually had to end. Ruby carelessly rushed ahead to attack, and got locked in a clash against Tyrian. However, he still had a last limb that she didn't notice. He tried to strike Ruby with his stinger, but she was saved by Qrow one last time. He jumped in front of her and took the stinger right to his stomach, piercing his flesh. It was a slow and quiet moment, as Qrow realized he fucked up. They stood still for a moment, as the poison was released like purple ooze directly into his open wound.

Tyrian laughed. "HAHAHA! I can't believe this old trick got you! You should see the look on your face-"

SCHWING!

Ruby reacted while the two were locked in that pose. She quickly changed Crescent Rose into sword mode and slashed Tyrian across his entire chest, cutting off his stinger while she was at it. The look on her face was of absolute anger, unlike anything we ever saw from her. She snarled and went beserker exactly like Qrow does.

It was quick, unpredictable and decisive. Even Qrow was shocked to see her act in such a way. Tyrian was forced to back off. He raised his hand and saw blood gushing out of his chest, but his face wasn't of pain or worry — he didn't even mind losing his tail. There was a simple sadness in his eyes as he understood that playtime was over. Qrow wasn't doing any better — he fell to his knees and Ruby stepped up to protect him. She was still ready to rumble, looking at Tyrian with a hateful glare.

"You're such a killjoy, little girl. But anyway, it was nice seeing you again, Qrow! How about a truce for now? I'll be back in case you survive. And for you, my new little red friend… I'll make sure to remember your smell ❤"

With one last sadistic, perverted and creepy smile, Tyrian disappears.

Ruby immediately retreats with Qrow to treat his serious wounds. She covered his bleeding arms and legs and moved in to suck out the venom out of his stomach, like she learned on TV. She did it correctly without swallowing, and managed to spit out a bit of blood mixed with a disgusting purple liquid. She tried doing it again, but it didn't work anymore — Qrow can feel it's already moving around his system. Ruby starts crying as she thinks he's about to die, but Qrow fights through mind boggling pain in order to stand up and make her relax. "Come on Ruby, I had much worse than this..."

She tries to convince him to lie down but he refuses, judging the mission to be much more important than a little bit of pain. His senses are so skewed that after a few steps he already falls face first into the ground. Ruby has to hold him up and help him walk. Qrow admits being a little dizzy, but he assures that this happened before. He knows he can survive — it's just going to take him a couple of days to get himself together.

Now Qrow realizes something bad. He and Ruby left their baggage behind to search the village. They rush to find them, and… there they were. Ruby searches through his stuff and realizes it's all still there. But when Qrow looks at it, he sees that all the booze bottles have disappeared. Tyrian had stolen them.

Qrow screams into the heavens, "TYRIAAAAAAAAAN!"

Ruby didn't know what was wrong, but Qrow suddenly changed his mind. He ordered her to go back to Vale city — the mission just got too dangerous for her. Naturally Ruby would never let Qrow go alone in this condition, so no matter how much he argued, Ruby was staying until he recovers. She didn't understand. Qrow mumbled, "Ruby… without my whiskey, I'm just a time bomb. I'm telling you… go home…"

Qrow passed out. He's still alive, but dwindling in and out of conscience. Ruby went ahead and searched his things until she found the marked map that Ozpin gave him. With nothing else to do in the village, she picked up the two's bags and carried Qrow on her back. Even with these dismal conditions, Ruby still wants to continue on. Memories of Cinder flash on her mind, and make her grit her teeth. She will have her revenge. And so we end another act.

Commentary (spoilers): This section is much simpler than the others, but it serves as build up to what happens next in Ruby's story. With Qrow out of commission, the stakes just grow and grow. You might be wondering what is the point to Tyrian's character, now that his connection to Salem has been severed from the plot. Well it's not complicated at all. I said it once, if Qrow is the Batman of this universe, he needs a Joker. He needs a true and decisive villain to make his life a living hell for the sake of it. Tyrian is the incarnation of his actions, something that he will have to deal with until his final moments. In a more symbolic note, Tyrian represents the madness that Qrow fights to suppress. A man who wants to break him; who wants him to abandon everything and everyone as Tyrian destroys him piece by piece, and eventually makes Qrow as savage and evil as he is. Tyrian's character doesn't need a deep or interesting backstory because at the end of the day he serves no other purpose than to be the perfect antagonist for this one character; quite like the Joker. His twisted simplicity is beautiful. On a writer's note, in the original series, Tyrian was always just Qrow's rival and not much else, so I decided to make that his whole character. It kinda goes against my writing philosophy to have this great rivalry begin off screen, but it has to be this way to make logical sense within the new plot and canon. And also, remember Lillyward; it's gonna be important for later.

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Now… back to Blake.

Her second act starts in a fancy table room. She is still looking down in shame — ears lowered and eyes filled with sorrow. Sun was sitting beside her, and Ghira was at the other side of the table with Kali. It seems that she just finished telling them everything that happened, offscreen. Ghira asks, "So you were in Vale this past year, in the Huntsmen academy… but why? Why did they send you?"

"I was at the right age, and… I did this sort of job for the White Fang before. I never had to interact with anyone, they just needed someone that could sneak by unnoticed, and act a part. I never knew the true value of the things I stole, or the information I leaked. They promised we were making the world better for Faunus, but… this place hasn't changed in the slightest… nothing has changed at all... All I did was hurt people for no reason…"

Ghira looked at her stoically before saying, "I see… Indeed, the things you did, knowing or not, were horrible. But in the end, you were able to understand your mistake by yourself, and that's great. I always feared their lies would corrupt you forever."

Ghira proceeds to give a complete story of what is the White Fang, since the last worldbuilding input about them happened in volume II. Although it started as a force to make living conditions for Faunus in Menagerie better, it was quickly being twisted by evil on the inside as the faction grew and expanded. Ghira himself led the White Fang for a dozen years, but once its motives were misaligned, he decided to step down. Under the command of Sienna Kahn, the White Fang became nothing but its own army of mercenary soldiers, seeking power and domination in the world's continent. Literally a fascist revolutionary party in the universe to put it simply, but those terms don't exist in the canon. Ghira became the chief of Menagerie, but the White Fang's popularity allowed them a lot of political power within the island. However, now that Ghira knows what they have been doing to Vale without him knowing, that ought to change.

Now there's one last question to ask. "Blake… who is this boy?"

"This is Sun-" Blake was saying.

"I'm her boyfriend." Sun interrupted.

Ghira immediately pounced at Sun with great speed and started strangling him. He held him up by his throat, almost hitting the ceiling. Kali shouted at him to stop, and Blake merely covered her face and sighed. Ghira said, "you should watch your tongue, boy. She wouldn't date a back-street hoodlum scum like you in a million years!"

"… What did you say, old man?!" Sun said with the last bit of air he still had left. He used his tail to draw his staff and hit Ghira in the face, freeing himself. What follows is a quick and repetitive fight that shows Ghira's ability in combat, and immediately introduces these two as sworn enemies. Before they can destroy the house, Kali suddenly appears between them, and punches them both to the ground in a single hit. "CUT IT OUT!" she shouted.

Once the chaotic scene ends, the four start hearing the flapping of wings, and suddenly someone arrives through the open window near the ceiling. It was a man, and he had wings instead of arms, wore glasses, and used some kind of black and white uniform with iron pieces. Menagerie doesn't have a Huntsmen Guild or a very organized government in general, but they have a basic police force called the Guard of Menagerie. This officer came to request Ghira's presence at the ongoing protest happening near the docks. Apparently the people are unhappy towards the human refugees who just arrived on the island. Ghira, accompanied by Sun and Blake, decide to go.

…

The humans were kept sheltered in bare-bone barracks by the edge of the jungle. They escaped destruction only to be poorly welcomed by the residents of the island. From the words used by the dozen people protesting against them, we can get a feeling that they were fed the same type of lies about humanity that Blake has. Blake and Sun are the first to arrive there, and they confront the protesters head on. Their main argument is that humans hated them, and their presence within the island will cause Grimm to attack, and thus everyone wanted the humans back where they belong. A quick testimony of what happened in Vale was enough to calm down the masses. Apparently Menagerie has no connection to the outside world, and most of their information comes from White Fang propaganda. They continue discussing back and forth until Ghira arrives.

His commanding and wise presence is enough to make the Faunus disperse at his request. The humans will be staying on the island, and that's final. But the verbal battle was far from over. With Ghira here, the other political force within the island also came. Two White Fang representatives, wearing fancy brown hoods appear; Corsac and Fennec. They join the side of the protesters, but their arguments are much better. With the humans here, there will be a housing issue, a food issue (since they can barely farm for themselves), racial tension issue, and it would affect Ghira's image to side with the humans instead of his own people. Just like most White Fang, they are reserved and smart characters that don't have a cartoony personality — their only quirk is finishing each other's sentences sometimes. Fennec at least seems to be much more confrontational and sly than Corsac. Ghira was actually looking forward to seeing them.

"It's good that you're here, Fennec, Corsac, I have something important to tell you." Ghira said. Suddenly he looked bigger and scarier. "I henceforth BAN the White Fang from Menagerie, for the crime of supporting and aiding in the attack against Vale City!"

"What?!" The two said in unison.

Ghira knows it all now. They made an alliance with the motherfucking forces of Grimm, in order to strike not once, but twice against their neighbors. The worst part is that they didn't even bother telling him about all of this plot — he had to learn from an outside source just ten minutes ago. It wouldn't surprise him if Vale suddenly declares war and occupies the island, knowing White Fang have their base here. So it only makes sense that they need to go, so as to not cause problems to all other Faunus. Corsac and Fennec play it dumb and pretend to not know anything of what he's talking about — they say it was all lies and jokes.

"Are you calling my daughter a liar?" Ghira said, stepping to the side and showing Blake and Sun behind him. The two react with surprise, as it seems they recognize Blake. Their sweating becomes visible. They try to throw a subtle hint for Blake to take their side, but unfortunately she isn't on their side anymore. Fennec gets desperate and so he walks in and points his finger at her. "I don't know what you are thinking, Ghira, but why would you do something so drastic over the words of a single woman-!"

Suddenly Fennec's pointing hand is grabbed by Sun, and he pulls it away from Blake. "Hey-hey-hey, fellas! Let's not get worked up here. After all, I was there too, and I can confirm every single thing that she said." He said. From that simple exchange, Sun could observe that this guy was no joke — neither was his taller friend. They were strong. The Auras were subtle, but were quite powerful. Sun then said silently to him, "sorry, but your boys didn't quite manage to kill me."

Fennec backs off, and so Ghira reinforced his order. He wants all White Fang shit out of this island. They will abandon their little HQ, and take away their soldiers and their stationed ships, or whatever the fuck else, and leave today. Their main headquarters is in Haven, so this shouldn't be much of a loss for them. Corsac and Fennec promise he'll regret this. The Faunus people will not accept what he's doing, and the support that the White Fang gives this island is greater than anything he can muster. Ghira was sick of their lies, so he just uses his intimidating presence to send them away. He tells his defense force to watch over the White Fang post until they leave. After they are gone, they should use the houses they abandon to shelter the human refugees.

What Ghira fails to realize is that, although he did the right thing, he gave his opposition the greatest political stage possible.

What we see next is a montage of the White Fang packing up their shit, reuniting their dozens of public members at the docks and loading up their big roman ship in order to leave. The people look on in distress and confusion, so Fennec takes the chance to make one grand speech before they leave — a speech to manipulate the people of the island. He proclaims they are being sent away for an unfair reason, that they are innocent, and that even so they will continue to fight for the Faunus, and begs the people of Menagerie to not let this one go.

He managed to make them look like the deserted heroes, while Ghira was the tyrannical traitor. Typical left wing stuff. And so they leave on their fancy boat. In the end we get one final shot of Corsac and Fennec as they just smile and wave the people. They know that the queen will be absolutely pissed about this. Ghira's hero image was their most important asset here, but now that it turned against them, they will have to create a reason to destroy him, and force the White Fang back. They will leave that to their buddies in small places.

...

Now with the White Fang supposedly gone, and with the refugees given a little space to breathe, now just one question remains. What will Blake and Sun do?

Well, Blake essentially threw away everything, so she has no option other than stay for a while. She spent most time just being depressed and hopeless in her room. Sun had no reason to still follow and protect her, but Leo allowed him to stay behind in Vale on the condition that he gets twice as strong by the time he decides to return, or else he won't be allowed back. He started training immediately, and Ghira (on Blake's request) allowed him to crash on their place — specifically at the polar opposite side of the house from where Blake's room is, in the broom closet. Sun's training sessions were intense, so it's no wonder he's so much stronger than most of our main characters in Vale.

Blake was simply being a small baby girl, being pampered by her mother all day. She locked herself in her room and just spent a week crying in the dark. But then one day, she looked in the mirror and realized she looked pathetic. It's a silent scene where she picks herself up by remembering her training, and the words of her friends. And so, on a random spur of the moment, she decided to join Sun in his training without saying anything. He simply accepted her, because at least she was literally and figuratively getting her claws back. Plus he gets to watch her getting sweaty in tights, but lets not focus on that.

As they were resting by the sea shore... Blake finally, after all this time, decides to throw him a bone.

"Sun…" She says.

"Ye-yeah?"

"My name… my real name is Blake Belladona. Faux was just… a fake cover."

"Huh… okay… thanks for telling me!" Sun replied.

Eventually Ghira caught up to their training grounds, and realized these kids needed something to do. And so he put them up to become part of the Guard of Menagerie. It's a mere title with a uniform, since there were no specific working hours and Sun couldn't care less about the job, but he did look nice in their costume. By this point we have officially transitioned into a montage of time passing, just like Yang's. Here we have new looks for Blake and Sun, who will usually be wearing the black, yellow and white uniform, with the iron gauntlets, shoulder pads and hoods. Blake got a change of hair, as she cut it to shoulder length to sort of clean herself off her depressive, messy hair look, and join Sun in training. Effectively we have skipped three weeks of time for her as well. To put in comparison, Yang is still happy-go-lucky with the Branwen, Weiss is being depressed at home and Ruby is still helping to rebuild the city.

...

After the montage we cut right back to Blake, as she helps a human woman and her little boy who were being targeted by a group of local White Fang racists. She knocks them down on their ass and sends them running away. The woman recognizes Blake, as she makes clear that Blake especially has been working extra hard to help the refugees for the past weeks. For now this is Blake's only way to exercise her guilt. But even so, every time she helps them, she is confronted by those broken families who lost their loved ones. One of the little boys in there would constantly mistake Blake for his older sister, and he didn't want to accept that she died in the invasion. Every day he asked when he would get to see her again... but he never will.

Once she's alone, Blake goes on top of a watchtower and sits there; crying as a new wave of guilt washes over.

She's not allowed any time to ponder this time, as Sun suddenly jumps up the watchtower after shouting her name several times. Something horrible was going on — they were being invaded from the jungle side of the island. They needed to move out.

Here we get introduced to a few other minor characters — the rest of the Guards of Menagerie, including that winged guy from earlier, Saber, a dozen unnamed members, and the guard girl everyone likes for no reason. They are not deep characters, they just have one key Faunus ancestry that makes them stronger, cooler and more useful than the average Faunus, despite having no Auras. Some are stronger, others are faster, have better senses, more limbs, etc.

They split up and let Sun and Blake take point, since they are the only awakened warriors there. They attacked only the farmlands away from the city, and the reason was clear to Blake as soon as she arrived at the scene. Human pirates were kidnapping the Faunus girls from the farm. We don't need to explain why, it's pretty obvious even if it goes unmentioned. They were simply normal humans with guns, so it was a pretty effortless fight for Sun and Blake. We can have some of them carrying Dust bullets to increase stakes a little bit. The two take the fight all the way to the pirate ship, where they rescue all the remaining Faunus girls and send the scum on their way to sink and die by the following explosion.

The Guard was successful, but instead of being called heroes as they return, this once again turns into a stage to someone with a big mouth. Suddenly one of Fennec's friends stands up, and makes this huge rant about how this wouldn't have happened if the White Fang was here, and he criticizes Ghira even further by giving his daughter the role of Guard through nepotism. Sun and Blake don't try to mess with him or try to give him more reasons to rant, so they leave.

In the following scene, Blake and Sun discuss how the town's journal has been mostly about tearing her father down and blaming him for all the shit that has been happening — even the stuff that's completely out of his control. What Blake immediately realizes is that there's no way that the news about the White Fang's severance with Menagerie could reach the scum of the underground slave trafficking, since literally no information comes out of Menagerie. The only people who could've told them is the White Fang itself, in a ploy to endanger the people and make Ghira's decision and leadership seem bad. She tells Sun to expect much worse to come.

...

We also have one extra scene of our villains.

Corsac and Fennec go before queen Sienna in the same dark throne room we saw in volume II. She rants angrily by how much they fucked up. So many things were done to make Ghira play along, and they tossed it all in the trash by allowing outsiders in Menagerie. They defend themselves by stating the truth about Blake's betrayal. She was alive, and that means Adam lied about her involvement in the invasion — he said she was captured. Now she is not just a deserter, but she's actively fighting against them.

Sienna would have to think of a way to deal with this crisis, since they cannot afford to lose control over Menagerie. The island gave them a very good spot for their ships, and she had worked long and hard to serve as a filter to the island. In truth the White Fang could've used their resources and influence to make Menagerie into a much better place to live already — they could have brought digital technology, trading opportunities and modern medicine. They simply didn't because it wasn't convenient for them to spend so many resources into something that wouldn't help their plans of conquest in the long run. Fennec explains that the only person standing on their way to dominate Menagerie was Ghira… so logically, their best move is take him out, now that he has turned against them. His wife and daughter too, in case they take leadership after him. Sienna covers her face to think, but in the end she was interrupted.

At that moment they hear, "That will not be necessary, master."

They all look up to the ceiling. It was a dark room illuminated by a few torches, but even so they saw something begin to appear in the darkness — the silhouette of a petite woman. She was stuck to the ceiling by simply touching it with the palm of her hands, and so she dropped down. Her skin was still dark and blue like the background, but it slowly transitioned into a tanned brown color. Patches of scales were scattered randomly over her body. She was a chameleon Faunus.

"Ilia… you were listening?" Sienna asked.

"Killing Blake won't solve anything. Whatever happened to her, I'm sure I can bring her back to our side. We will deal with Ghira afterwards. Allow me to go with them." Ilia said, kneeling down.

"Hmm… you two were always good friends, even before you joined the elite squad. I'm not sure if I can forgive Blake so easily, but by all means you're welcome to try, as long as you're willing to continue the mission in the case you fail. Ghira is a strong man and he would rather suffer than to be manipulated. His only weakness is his family, so as long as we have his daughter or wife under our thumb, he'll obey — we do not need him to die. Are you ready for your mission, Ilia?" Sienna asked.

"Yes, master." Ilia says, and so she leaves with Corsac and Fennec. The door closes behind them, and the scene ends.

...

After that, we have a scene with the Belladona family (& Sun) having dinner that consists of fish cooked in three different ways. They are talking about the bad reputation that has been bubbling up about Ghira, but he was expecting it. He knows this is the White Fang trying to knock him out of power. His only option to defend himself is to tell the truth. He plans to make a public speech announcement in the coming days, detailing why he left the White Fang in the first place, what they've done, and even worse things that Blake and Sun don't know about. If that doesn't solve this problem, then he fears it is necessary to step down as chieftain of Menagerie, because he dreads what the most radical members of the White Fang will try to do. He's not willing to risk the lives of his family, even if it means defeat.

"Don't worry old man, I made an oath to protect your daughter, even if that is the last thing I do. You can count on me! Honestly, at this point we can skip the whole dating part and go straight into marriage-" Sun was saying to tease Ghira, and it worked. The man immediately grabbed him by the collar and the two started fighting beside their dinner table.

Blake and Kali just kept staring at them until Kali said, "I like him…"

Blake sighs and walks off from the table as her mom giggles.

We continue following Blake until she goes to her room and looks out through the big open window. As she inspect the city below and the night skies… she spots something in the forest jungle outside the town. A flag is stirred upwards, something that wasn't there before. Blake seemed to recognize it, and she immediately jumps out the window and runs towards it through the town's rooftops. She quickly arrives at the place where the flag was hosted, in the middle of the woods. Up above was a tree house that looked abandoned and decrepit, but Blake looks at it and touches the tree as something very dear to her heart. This is from her childhood. Soon she is surprised by a voice.

"This was when it started, wasn't it?" Ilia said. Blake doesn't even turn around, because she knows who it is. Ilia removes her camouflage and appears out of thin air. She continued, "We could see and hear the waves from up there… and we would imagine how life could be in the rest of the world. Do you remember?"

Memories of Blake and Ilia flash in her mind, back when the two were eight or ten — before all this crazy shit happened and before they were even White Fang. It has no words, just sweet music and smiles so we can grasp the idea of better days for the two of them. A warm day on paradise island, slowly fading back to an ominous and silent night. Those cute and innocent girls grew up to become cold and apathetic women. Without further due, Ilia walks in and hugs Blake, longingly and fondly.

"Adam said he would bring you back… but he never did, and refused to say why… I thought you were gone… I'm so glad you're okay, Bee."

"Ilia…" Blake said, hugging her back. The two then let go, and Ilia took her time examining Blake's face and arms. She was glad to see Blake came out unscathed from that one-year mission. Now she could finally stop with this whole act. Whatever she did wrong, Sienna may be willing to forgive her. Ilia knows Blake is being followed by that Huntsman boy, and promises they can take him down together. There was no reason to stay hidden or play the part anymore. Ilia was willing to believe that this whole idea of incriminating the White Fang was part of a greater scheme that she was cooking. "I'm sure that if you explain to the queen, she will understand. Now come on, you need to go back to HQ."

Ilia started walking away but then Blake said, "I'm not going."

Ilia stops again and says, "I said — you can stop with the act now."

"I'm not acting, Ilia. Not anymore."

"Then stop fooling around!"

"I'm not-"

"So let's go! What are you waiting for?!"

"I WAS WRONG, ILIA!" Blake shouted, cutting her off.

There was a long and dense silence. Blake proceeds to tell the same whole speech she gave Adam, except this one is not as emotionally charged — it's calm and sound. She tells about her time at Beacon, her friends, her team, and how she changed her perspective. Ilia, being the indoctrinated pawn that she is, refuses all of her claims despite the obvious logic behind them. Honestly I'm already sick of writing this sort of dialogue, because we clearly know who is right, so there's no battle for morality. Blake doesn't want to break her heart, but that seems to be inevitable now. In the end Ilia appeals to emotion. "After all that, after what we saw, are you still going to side with the humans?! They think we are monsters! They hurt us for no reason! They kidnap girls to be sold! Did you forget?! THEY KILLED MY PARENTS-"

"I know they did! I know… and if I find the ones responsible, I'll make sure they pay for it… But you can't blame everyone else for something they didn't do! Think Ilia! Not everyone in Vale killed your parents! Not everyone in Vale has hurt us! They have children – they have families to protect just like us! We and the humans are not different! They have the capacity for great evil, but so do we! We can't allow ourselves to be like the people we hate!

Ilia!… ILIA, LOOK AT ME!"

Ilia was shaking her head in confusion, as sadness and hatred started boiling up from Blake's rant. It usually happens when you're being hit straight in the face with truth and logic. There was a silence as the two looked at each other, and then Blake continued. "Ilia… you're still my friend. Nothing about that has changed, and it never will. But I can't… I can't allow myself to continue fighting for the hatred of others… and neither should you."

You can tell by the bewildered face of Ilia that Blake didn't manage to win her over. The hatred overcame the sadness — she had tears of anger.

Ilia said, "you… you… you traitor… TRAITOR!"

Ilia suddenly drew a funky-looking whip from her back, and she lashed it against Blake. She was so surprised that Ilia actually attacked her that she didn't even think about dodging — the attack was gonna hurt. But just then, the nosy ass monkey boy Sun jumps in, tackling Blake out of the way and getting slashed on his entire back as result. Yeah, he was there the whole time — showing up at random moments is his most notorious ability. He and Blake fall on the ground, and Sun is immediately wincing and shaking in pain from the attack, starting to bleed immediately.

Ilia jumped away and said, "IF THAT'S YOUR CHOICE, SO BE IT! You stupid, miserable, back-stabbing tramp… I'LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!"

And so she disappeared into the dark forest. Blake silently watches her go. And so we're through another section.

Commentary (spoilers): I think Blake's part might be the weakest in all this. When I decided to remake their individual stories, she was the only one to have a perfect setup and conclusion, all I did was sprinkle a bit of basic storytelling; like training with Sun, joining the Guard and such, just to give this section a bit more punch and have more active change instead of sitting in rooms and talking all day. Her story is more straightforward and not dynamic in comparison to the other three as a result. It's not bad, but it's not up to current standards. Ilia is the only character introduced here that will be used for later volumes. I don't want to rewrite anything about her, I would just like to give her a different visual design. I want something that complements her Faunus ability, like a more skimpy outfit that shows more skin; something beach related. But if we can't get away with that, let's just bullshit pass that and make so then her clothes magically get camouflaged as well, so she can keep her spandex sleeveless onesie thing. Here she's just angry and serious, but later we can show more of her good personality when she starts hanging out with the good guys.

And lasty, that scene at the sea shore is just to set a record straight. Blake's fake surname "Faux" was only spoken a handful of times, probably just once per volume up until now, so changing her name now shouldn't come as weird or even important. Originally I figured I should also change her first name to something that sounds like Blake, like "Bleik", but then I realized it's too much work. I would have to write her new name all the way to the end, and that seemed quite annoying. I don't know if I'll ever get the chance to exposit about this, but the reason people in the White Fang call her "Bee" it's because Blake resented her own name for a long time, probably because of the bad memories she had with her parents.

.

.

.

And so with that we have finally arrived on everyone's final act — now all the girls are relatively on the same timeline. For the next section I'll focus on Ruby and Yang, since the two still have one act left for each, plus one extra that deals with their reunion. But before we do so, we get one more scene of Cinder.

It's quick once again, and it doesn't even feature her. We just follow one of the Grimm she unleashed to search for something. A baby wolf was just running by, while the bigger ones searched the mountains, plains and forest. They are absolutely destroying everything in their quest, but they still find absolutely nothing. The little wolf is randomly tossed out by the destruction the big boys are causing.

He falls on a lake and quickly sunks to the bottom. The monster doesn't need air, so it doesn't die. There it finds something mysterious — there was a pedestal underwater, and it seems to be centuries old by it's design. He quickly swims back up, goes to the shore, and from the top of his lung it releases a loud shriek. More and more Grimm hear it, and they start to make that same sound one by one. They have found it. And so cut the scene.

.

.

.

Now, let's go back to Ruby.

She was in a bit of an uphill battle, literally. The quickest path to Anima was crossing a mountain range, and it was getting chilly. From one hour to the next she was ankles deep in snow. Qrow was still dwindling in and out of conscience, and every time he woke up he would curse Ruby, and tell her to go back before passing out again. The falling snow flakes were getting on her eyes, so as a cute little easter egg she picks up Roman Torchwick's hat from her bag and puts it on for the rest of the section. She was struggling against the terrain but eventually reached a considerable height. Once there, she was met with a bizarre sight.

Far away, in the horizon of the north, both the sky and land were emanating a dark glow. Dark grass and a dark blue sky, like the land is permanently covered by night. A place that defied reality with pure, unimaginable evil. That was the first time Ruby saw the land of Vacuo, the place where the enemies of humanity were born. She was so shocked and disturbed by that view that she decided to run away from it, and camp in a cave far away. If the map was correct, then she wouldn't need to go anywhere near Vacuo. The cave was protected from the snow, now she needed to make some fire for her and Qrow. She struggled to make anything spark in this temperature, but then she had the idea to use Qrow's flask of whiskey to give an extra flare to the flames, and it worked.

With the fire good, she simply cuddled up with Qrow and slept for a while.

…

She was plagued by nightmares of Cinder — those silver eyes she had were burned in her memory forever, along with all the fear and rage she was feeling. But eventually she wakes up, as Qrow shouted her name over and over in desperation. She opens her eyes in shock. Qrow was leaning against the wall and was shouting at her to watch out. Soon she realized why — in her night horrors, she ended up sticking her leg on the campfire and it started burning. She was able to put it out, but her boot and some of her pants were toast. Qrow was apparently fully conscious, but Tyrian's poison had paralyzed his body. Ruby looks outside and sees that the weather only became worse — the simple cold turned into a snowstorm. Qrow says that it's his fault.

"But… how?! I thought your Semblance only brought you bad luck!" Ruby said.

"When I'm drunk, yes! Anything that affects the mind will naturally affect the powers of a Huntsman. But if I'm not drunk, my Semblance will not be suppressed. My power is not just Misfortune, Ruby, it's Chaos!" Qrow said. He explains it to her for the first time. He has said something along those lines, but it never went so in depth. Ruby has never seen Qrow so worried in her life. He ordered Ruby to take his flask of whiskey and pour everything on his mouth. She did as he asked but… it wasn't enough. She had used it last night for the fire, and that pisses off Qrow. "What did I always say about touching my flask, damn it!" he said, scaring Ruby.

Without booze, Qrow simply cannot continue on the mission — Chaos will either kill him or Ruby. He tells her she needs to go back, but she says that they can't yet. After all, they still haven't found Yang or their target. Qrow realizes that the only way to get out of this situation alive was to knock him out, since that will shut off his Semblance. He tells Ruby to go ahead and hit him in the face until It's a KO. Ruby is obviously hesitant, but once again Qrow angrily orders her to do as he says — another spark of this abusive tone that he never showed before. He starts insulting Ruby to hype her up, and eventually she goes to strike him. Unfortunately, Qrow is a tough bastard who's tenacity is leagues above her level, so it won't be her the one to knock him out bare handed.

After several hits Qrow started bleeding from his nose and got bruised on the cheek, which immediately made Ruby back away in regret from what she just did. In the end she wasn't cold enough to do it, the only solution was to leave Qrow behind. "If you go far enough away it should stop targeting you. In just a few hours I'll be able to move. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine as long as-"

ROAWR!

There was a wall of gravel that blocked the deeper parts of the cave, but they weren't alone in there. Suddenly the red eyes appear from that darkness, and jump to attack just as Qrow was speaking — bursting through the wall of stones with its claws. It struck Ruby with a paw swing and sent her flying against the ceiling, and so it pounced at Qrow to bite him.

It was one of those bizarre Grimm from the forbidden north that Ruby never saw before. Back home she faced Grimm who looked like bears and wolves, but here they get a little freaky. For the first time she sees a Beowolf, one of the deadliest Grimm on the forbidden north. She was able to kill it and free Qrow, but now he was bleeding from the bite. Soon they heard a dozen more howls coming from the inner cave — more Beowolves were coming. Qrow told Ruby to run, so she grabbed their stuff and ran into the snowstorm with Qrow on her back.

Visibility was zero. The path ahead was as dangerous as anything else around them, and there was a pack of powerful monsters moving six a clock. She had no time to think, so she just ran without a goal. Eventually they seem to reach an alpine forest of sorts, and it only gets worse from there. The strong winds were pushing against the trees, and they were falling one by one towards Ruby, forcing her to dodge. Qrow explained that his Chaos Semblance will do anything it can to kill them, no matter how low of a chance it might be. It controls the force of calamity itself, targeting every living creature and object around Qrow with the express purpose of destroying all that surrounds him.

He is immediately proven to be right, as Ruby accidentally steps over a falling leaf, which slides her foot in the snow and makes her trip with Qrow on her back. Not only that, but the force and speed made the shoulder strap of her bag break apart, scattering her stuff on the ground. All the food Oscar gave her fell off, along with her scroll phone, Yang's purple scarf, a change of clothes and some other survival crap. She tried putting it all back, but the bottom of her bag suddenly slit open, and everything fell on the snow again. "ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS?!" She shouted.

Just then she looked up and saw that Qrow was starting to regain his body movements, but she also saw the pack of Beowolves coming right at them. She only managed to save her phone, Yang's scarf, their weapons and Qrow before running away again. Ruby was being slowed down by the environment, and the monsters were about to catch up. She would have to fight, but then Qrow told her, "Don't! Just run! They won't be able to attack us, trust me!" She didn't know what he meant, but she trusted him.

She continued running, and though the Grimm were getting closer, they started to suffer from the same hazards as them on a much worse scale. Just as one was about to claw Ruby's back, a tree fell down and split the Grimm in half. One of them started sliding off due to ice, and ended up falling off a cliff. Another got pelted by snow in its eyes and ran straight into a tree, breaking it in half and disturbing all other Grimm around him with a catastrophic chain reaction of pure chaos. Qrow explained that Chaos will always focus its efforts against aggressive behavior — a power he called Karma.

Only one Beowolf remained chasing them. Ruby took a detour over a frozen lake to escape. She was smart enough to skate through it like Weiss taught her to, but the Grimm sunk its claws to run and started cracking the entire frozen river. Eventually it fell through the cracks, swallowed by the freezing water. The monster started struggling, but before he sank, it released one last ear shattering shriek into the air, echoing all around the forest. Ruby could only stop and breathe for a few seconds.

Soon they could hear the consequences, and see it too. The scream disturbed the mountain, and so the snow started falling into a huge avalanche. There was no escaping that. Before it hit them, Qrow told her to hold tight to her weapon. They just stood there as the sea of white engulfed them.

…

The punch from the avalanche knocked out Ruby for a minute. Once she woke up, she started clawing her way out. Thanks to her Semblance it was easy to bust herself out, but now at the surface she realizes that the whole forest was completely buried, and Qrow was nowhere to be found. She called out for him, but it was useless to shout in this loud snowstorm. She was desperate, she felt like crying… but then she calmed herself down.

The only way to find him was by sensing his Aura. She closed her eyes, and the world around her went completely silent. She searched for the familiar signature of his essence, and was able to sense it right underneath her. She starts digging with her hands — fingers almost frozen and bluish. With much effort she finds Qrow's foot, and pulls him out. He wakes up coughing, asking if she was okay. She doesn't have the strength to answer — she just takes him on her shoulder, and starts walking aimlessly through the blinding snowstorm.

They lost their bags, they are severely off track, and the two are close to dying. What better place to cut to black?

...

After going through the snowstorm for a long while, probably hours, they finally spot something. A few pine trees and a house, positioned against the side of a wall of the mountain. Ruby had long passed out, and by this point Qrow was dragging her — the poison in his system was almost fully gone. With much effort he's able to crawl to the house and break through the window. It was a pathetically small shack with just a single room. He feebly ravaged for something to close off the hole he just made, and so the two are finally safe.

Ruby woke up only the next morning, staring into the warm fireplace of the shack. There was a bunch of random garbage covering her, and she could still hear the snowstorm going wild outside. As she tried to stand up, Qrow said behind her, "Ruby… just stay down… your Aura is not going to save you if your organs start freezing."

She turned her head around and saw Qrow leaning against the door. The blood from his bite wound had frozen. He was shirtless, as he used his blouse and cape to start the fire. The amount of scars covering his body is frightening — a body that went through hell since a young age. Ruby asked, "Where are we?"

"Somewhere safe." He said with a shrug.

Ruby tried getting up, "Uncle… if you don't fix your wounds, you're going to-"

"I said STAY DOWN!" Qrow shouted.

Suddenly a plank of wood from the wall broke off and went flying; snow and wind rushed inside the shack. Qrow ripped off a floorboard and shoved it in place to close it; then he immediately fell on the ground again. He explains that this is a decrepit old shack in the middle of a hellstorm. If they make a single brisk move, his Semblance will find a way to tear this roof off. Hell, even if they do absolutely nothing, the house will be destroyed by the blizzard anyway, but at least they can have some time to rest.

And so the two lied quietly for a long time. Ruby picked her scroll phone from her pocket, only to realize it cracked and broke after the avalanche. She was about to throw it away, but Qrow said to keep it. The Huntsmen scrolls have a few special features that work even while unusable (important for later). After a while, Ruby's stomach started growling. The whole situation that morning didn't allow them to eat, and the rations were lost.

After a long while, Ruby said, "I'm sorry."

"You should be." Qrow said. "god damn it… I told you to stay home, you refused. I told you to go back, you keep going. I told you to leave me behind, and now you almost died dragging me here! You weren't like this, Ruby — what happened to you?"

"Hey! I saved your life on the way here!" Ruby replied.

"Is that really how it seemed to you? Let me recapitulate then: Both of us almost got killed by a crazed assassin, and I was poisoned because you could do the one thing I asked of you — staying away. You dragged us to the worst environment possible while I was unconscious, just because you wanted to arrive faster! And now, WE ARE HERE, at the end of the world in a crumbling shack, about to be buried in snow! Great, Ruby, thanks for saving us!"

"Why are you being so mean all of the sudden? Are you some kind of reverse jerk that becomes a moron when he sobers up?!" Ruby said.

"Aaaand- you used my last shot of whiskey to light a fire. Thanks for reminding me!"

Ruby gritted her teeth and turned to face him. "Don't put the blame on me just because you have an awful Semblance! All the things that happened so far have happened because you ARE you! Maybe I would be better off if YOU were the one who stayed back at home. How about that?!"

"Of course you would, but this is my mission! It was given to me! I don't even know why I let you stick around in the first place!" Qrow said. There was silence for a while as they just stared at each other in anger. Qrow continued, "Enlighten me on this one, Ruby: Why did you want to come along so bad?"

"… I want my sister back." Ruby replied.

"Yes, that should be the right answer, shouldn't it? But that's not the whole reason, right?! You want to kill Cinder Fall — that's why you came, and that's why you continue acting stupid! What a joke! A little red pipsqueak like you, fresh out of the academy, wants to hunt down the strongest woman in the world?! Are you honestly that stupid?!" Qrow ranted.

"… I have a reason."

"No you don't! I know you're upset, but that doesn't justify risking your life!"

"AND WHAT ABOUT YOU?!" Ruby shouted back, making the shack tremble a bit. "You think it's fine to leave home for months on end! You think it's fine to drink yourself to death! You think it's fine for YOU to go alone after her! You think you can do whatever you want, while I have to sit at home and pray that you don't come back in a casket! YOU'RE A HYPOCRITE!"

"I WANT YOU TO BE BETTER THAN ME!" Qrow shouted. "And that's what your mother would've wanted!"

…

At that point Ruby was angry to the point of small tears. Once Qrow mentioned her mother, her face became serious and cold. She pushed away all the garbage pile that was keeping her warm, and stood up. She slowly walked up to Qrow, making the house crumble a bit and making a horrible sound by stepping on the rotten old floorboards. She said as she began shivering, "You never told me… For ten years, you never — not once — told me how mom died! She was a hero, and she died on a mission… that's what you told me… All the while, her murderer was out there, and you didn't even bother telling me the truth for all these years!"

Qrow's eyes changed. "I don't know what you're talking about-"

"Cinder killed mom… professor Ozpin told me everything."

…

And so Qrow's face went through a journey of shock… sadness… confusion… and then anger. Vicious anger. He gritted his teeth and screamed like a primal beast. He quickly got up and started destroying the furniture, punching the walls and kicking the ground as he cursed Ozpin's name in bloody anger. "Uncle, STOP!" Ruby said, as she was forced to use the stuff on the ground to hold the shack together, until she had enough. "I SAID STOP!" She shouted, tackling Qrow into the ground.

They lied on the floor in silence as the walls and ceiling were trembling… but eventually stopped, and they were allowed to breathe. Ruby sat in the middle of the room in a fetal position and watched as Qrow crawled towards the wall and sat against it, with his head down. They kept like that for minutes that felt like hours. After a while, Ruby noticed that…

Qrow was crying.

Tearsdrops were falling down on his leg, and he quickly covered his face with his hand. Ruby saw that with eyes of fear and confusion. It shocked her to the core, to see her idol, her master and everything else, showing weakness for the first time. It made her cry with him like a domino effect.

"It's my fault…" Qrow mumbled. "This is… This is not what she wanted… "

"…Uncle Qrow… why are you crying?"

"Ruby, your mother, she…

She never wanted you… to become a warrior like her." Qrow said.

...

Ruby's eyes lost their glow.

There was a long and deafening silence after that, with a lot of emotions going through her head. Qrow continued, "She wanted you to live a normal life… and not suffer like she did… to be forced to fight in this war… and watch your friends leave you, one by one… She never wanted any of that… but I trained you anyway, because… I was afraid… I was afraid that I would be gone one day, and that there would be no one to look after you, other than yourself… and what became of you?… Summer would never forgive me for this… She was right… I'm nothing but a stupid dog…"

Ruby went right back to crying. "Uncle Qrow… please… don't say these things… I don't care… if they are true or not… just stop…"

"I'm a failure, Ruby… I am… All this time, I… I hoped that you would hate me… it would be easy to live, knowing that the people I loved wouldn't care if I was gone… I was horrible, absent, annoying… but you loved me anyways… and for a time… your love made me forget the pain of losing her." Qrow said, still speaking in between tears and sniffles. "Now look at me… my friends are all gone… my sister wants me dead… I couldn't protect my family… and I couldn't fulfill the only promise I ever made in my life…

Summer didn't die because she was weak… She died because I was there… and because of who I am…

Cinder Fall wasn't the reason Summer died, Ruby… it was me.

So please… just let me go… Forget who I am… and hate the fact I ever existed…

That's all I want… that's what I deserve." Qrow finished.

…

...

...

Qrow was still looking down, never facing Ruby during his entire rant.

But once he was done… He saw Ruby reaching out for his chest.

She placed her hand over his heart, and then quickly grabbed his collar to pull him closer. She caught him in a hug, and the wistful music kicked in hard. They get stuck in that embrace for a long while. Ruby's tears were regretful — sliding down her face like a waterfall. She felt an untold wave of sadness, as she realized that the person she loved most has spent the last several years in such a miserable loneliness, and she never realized it. She flashes back to Qrow in all his past appearances, always with that same fake smile, holding all his pain so she could be happily unaware. His suffering must've been so unbearable.

Qrow looks up, and we can finally see the tears in his face. Ruby then said, "Why does everyone keep asking me that?… Why should I let go?… Why should I forget?… Even if mom were to hate me… How could I be happy to just be normal?… how could I be happy by sitting back while the people I love continue suffer?… I became a warrior… so I could help people, like she did… so I could help you, and dad, and Yang… A warrior that has no one to protect… is no warrior at all…" Ruby said, still crying.

"If it means keeping you alive… If it means that I can see you again, even just for one more day… I'll never stop loving you… So stop saying those things to yourself… Mom might have been right… but she's gone… you're the one still here with me…

and I don't want to lose you too."

…

…

With that… Qrow finally grew the courage to hug her back.

Something as simple as a demonstration of love is enough to make Qrow, the man who saw hell and back, break into tears a second time. And so, for that long moment… Chaos seems to have disappeared. The snowstorm stopped, and so did the strong winds. They kept hugging one another until Qrow stood up and lifted her off the ground. Everything was slow and quiet around them, and soon the only sound beside the music was each other's tears.

Eventually he had to put her down. They took a few seconds to shrug off their tears, and then looked at each other again with warm smiles. There was a clear relief in their faces. All the weights have finally fallen off their backs. Loneliness, anger, sadness, regret — all of it were gone. All that was left now... is to move forward, together. "So… how about we dump this place?" Qrow asked

"Yeah… let's go!" Ruby replied.

Qrow went to take his first step…

And so the floorboards collapsed, sending him falling through the ground.

"UNCLE QROW!" Ruby shouted in shock, jumping after him.

They quickly landed on the cobblestone floor of the basement. All this time they were standing above a much safer place, but that's not all. What they found down there was a dark room, filled with these strange shelves full of barrels. "Oh brother… please tell me…" Qrow said. He went ahead and punctured a hole in the barrel with his finger, and out came a purple substance that started spilling on the floor. Qrow cupped his hands, sniffed it, and then started drinking. "It's wine!" he said, and he was drinking fast. "fucking hell, it's delicious!"

Ruby wiped the dust from the side of the barrel, and there was something written. A barrel of fine wine, dated 1472. She thought it was impossible — that's a little less than a thousand years in the future.

After drinking literally an entire barrel of wine, Qrow said, "It's not a mistake… the taste doesn't lie, this was conserved here since before the first Grimm invasion."

Ruby started drinking with him. She got drunk in seconds, but it tastes too sweet for her to control herself. Qrow continued searching the place until he found rotting meat, water and all sorts of crap that expired centuries ago. He did find something useful, though. Cans of beans, which were kept in the right places and thus were still good to eat. He found new bags, and new clothes from a different time. Ruby could finally change her wet and destroyed outfit for a red and black corset dress with long white sleeves. She looked cute. Her red hood was a bit damaged at the end, but it looked just like Qrow's cape, so she felt a weird sense of pride.

Qrow himself also gets his first redesign, borrowing an awesome black tunic with a long gray robe and red sashes — with also a few medieval armor pieces. Basically, Ruby now has her original volume 4 outfit, while Qrow has a new outfit of the same medieval style. The red witch hunter, and the black swordsman. He and Ruby finally had a much deserved meal — ancient baked beans and wine. The two eat side by side and lean against each for some warmth.

There's nothing else to be said. With that, we conclude another section.

Commentary (spoilers): Huge fucking reveals left and right, and still many more to come. The direction of this scene is something I wouldn't trust to a lesser director, because it needs perfection. I made sure to write the whole dialogue, but hell, there are some parts that still need some tweaking. Originally this scene would be just about Qrow's alcoholism, but man… the conflict between a struggling man and the child who inherited all of his worst traits is my favorite type of story in any game, book or movie. The moment when someone loses to their demons, only for someone to pull them back to life. The moment when the regretful is accepted back with open arms. In volume III their relationship is just wholesome. In IV, it was shown to be dysfunctional and distant at times. And here, they were put through the ringer of both battles and emotions, all culminating in a place where they have nothing else to do except talk. The symbolism of the crumbling shack is the best part in all of this. There are many cool moments in this volume, and this might be my favorite. If I were to change anything, it is to give the reveal about Summer to have a much bigger punch on Ruby. To discover that the two people who inspire you to become what you are… deeply regret seeing you become just like them. I'm not the pacing master, so this scene might need some reworking. If you want to add your own inputs, go ahead.

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Okay we need to go back to Yang and then cap off the two with Ruby again.

The Branwen squad made a long journey to the place where this Shay was imprisoned. One night as they camped, Raven explained the situation better to Yang. Shay was an oldschool Branwen just like she and Qrow, and he knows all of their secrets. If the Huntsman Guild finds anything out, they can essentially capture or kill all of them. That sets off a lot of flags, and Yang finally started asking the real questions. "Why? Why would they kill us?… What have you done for the last twenty years?!" she asks

"What I wanted." Raven replied.

"… what kind of answer is that?!" Yang said.

Raven stood up and got really close to Yang's face. "Yang, listen to me. Now it's not the time for doubt. I can't have you questioning my leadership right now. You need to trust me."

Yang had the clear "I'm not sure about this" face. At this point she's starting to lose faith in her mother, and Raven could see that. After a long and awkward silence, Raven decided to try and be close to Yang. She had no idea how, but she just tried to be honest. She glanced around to make sure no one else was going to hear what she says next.

"Your father, he… he and I didn't agree on many things… perhaps none at all. At one point I was unsure if I loved him or not, but… one thing that we had in common was our love for you. When I held you for the first time, I felt something that I can't really describe. I was unsure of what to do, but the way you looked at me, and the way you giggled… it made all my worries just wash away. And when I decided it was time to leave… I was relieved to know that you would be in the care of my best friends. You grew up well… and even if you didn't notice, I was there… watching. I was convinced it would be better for both of us if we never met, but still… you always had my curiosity." Raven said, with her usual apathetic face. Despite her expression, that's the most emotion she ever talked about, or shown. It manages to hook Yang in her words. After a short silence, Raven continued, "Do you want to know a secret?"

"Sure." Yang replies with a smile.

"Me and your father had agreed on a name, but he changed it after I left…

Canary Branwen… That is your birth name." Raven said.

Yang smiled as she looked at the campfire. After another quiet while, she makes a serious face, and says, "Mom… I just need you to promise me that we won't hurt anyone. That's my condition for helping you… can you promise me?"

"You have my word." Raven replied.

Yang gladly hugged Raven again in relief, and then walked away.

Even here in the wild, Yang still decided to sleep next to Vernal. The girl wasn't very happy with the sudden trip, because clearly she didn't like Shay very much. Just the thought of him makes her recoil. Yang encourages her to help anyway, since he's a member of the tribe and it's her duty to help despite their differences. It doesn't change her mind, but she will do as Yang says. There was just one thing that Vernal didn't understand. She didn't know why Miss Raven wanted them to go, as she could easily save Shay by herself. Once Yang questioned why, Vernal realized she said something she shouldn't, and so threw away the conversation, and went to bed.

...

The next day, the five strongest members of the Branwen tribe (Raven, Yang, Niko, Odion and Nerval) were watching over the little town from the hilltop. It was early in the morning, so the sunrise was behind them on the horizon. The town they are watching over is none other than Lillyward — twelve hours or so before Ruby and Qrow arrived there. It was still all in one piece by then. It wasn't big, and the low number of people might entice a Grimm attack at any moment. The reason this town exists at all is the mine from the neighboring mountain. It was full of undiscovered Dust, and was far away from Atlas. The plan was to establish a village there, mine the Dust and sell it all to Haven, so the nation can have a chance of modernizing like everyone else. From afar, Raven could sense two Auras in the city. The plan was simple: one team distracts, the other would move in to rescue Shay.

I have very few plans for this whole section, because the eventual fight is not the crux of the scene — it serves more as a build up for what happens later in the section. My idea was just to have Yang and Vernal distract everyone in the village with a fake story about them being attacked by Grimm nearby while traveling. Here we would actually see Samson and Dalia that Qrow mentioned, both being really strong Huntsmen OCs that I made up. Their design can be summarized as western cowboys, the two seem to be somewhat on the same age as Raven, and they have a very clingy lovey-dovey atitude with each other. They immediately help Yang and Vernal, believing them without question. They treat them very sweetly, like they just got two new daughters and are thrilled by that prospect. This whole scene is just to humanize these two and make them likable really fast.

Meanwhile, Raven and the boys manage to find Shay in the big basement, strapped to a hundred chains against the wall. He was beaten extensively, and cursed Raven for taking so damn long to rescue him. It seemed like they were good to go, but the plan is ruined by a hidden factor. Shay insisted on retrieving his weapon, a Switchblade, from Samson's bedroom. Apparently it was unglodly expensive and handcrafted by Atlas scientists. The two Huntsmen end up spotting the plot, and so the five Branwen are forced to fight the Huntsman couple. They are really strong, and with their inhuman level of romantic synergy, they manage to fight all of them together.

Samson had a Semblance that allowed him to store reserve Aura energy into his grizzled long hair, so as the fight progresses his hair gets shorter. But if he cuts it off, he immediately gets a gigantic power boost for a long while. His weapon are chains connected to shackles in his wrists, swinging them around to grab and toss his opponents at long range. Dalia has a very special Semblance, granting her a special sight (kinda like X-ray) that allows her to instantly identify the weakness of any person — from simple body ills, to the weaknesses of their Semblances. Her weapon is a bayonet rifle with a detachable sword.

The fight is long and tense, with both sides going for killing strikes all the time. Dalia was sword fighting Raven, and in their clash she was wounded while she manages to cut off Raven's head scarf, revealing her identity. Dalia immediately recognized her, but Raven didn't talk back and didn't stop fighting. It seems these two once knew each other. Yang multiple times jumped in to try and stop the battle from happening, and eventually convinced everyone to just run away.

But then the actual important thing happens. Somewhere in the fight, an attack ends up destroying the small house that stored all the Dust that was mined, causing an explosion and setting the village on fire. The Grimm noticed the huge sound and the moment of weakness, and jumped in to attack. The Branwen already got what they wanted, so they decided to book it. But as they ran away, Yang stood watching. The Grimm were closing in, and the villagers were still loading up the wagon with their stuff to escape. Samson and Dalia were wounded from the fight, and couldn't beat all these Grimm on their own. They were good people — they don't deserve this.

Even if it was stupid, Yang knew what she had to do.

"Yang, what are you doing?! Let's go!" Raven said.

"But they-"

"Forget them, we need to go!"

...

Yang looked at Raven with eyes of absolute disappointment.

She shook her head, gritted her teeth and ran back towards the village. And so suddenly Yang started aiding Samson and Dalia at fighting the Grimm. With her help they are able to save the remaining villagers, giving them time to prep the horses and escape on the big wagon. She draws the attention of all the Grimm, also letting Samson escape with his wounded wife in his arms. "Thank you, kid..." he says as he runs.

Yang was quickly overwhelmed, and the Grimm were smart and bizarre — it was the Beowolves again. She started getting bitten and surrounded, and clearly she would die like that. From the hilltop, the Grimm were also attacking the Branwen squad who were waiting for her. Raven's eyes were locked at Yang, while her team is telling her to make an escape for them now. Shay said, "why are we waiting for that dumb broad, get us out of here! She got herself there, she deals with it. That's the rules, Raven!"

"No! We can't leave without Yang! She's one of us!" Vernal said.

Raven was torn apart — Vernal said the obvious choice, while Shay said the choice that supports her cruel beliefs. But before she could choose what to do, Vernal simply jumps in after Yang. Here she made her first choice so far, going against the tribe to save Yang. And boy, what a surprise that comes next.

Vernal has barely fought so far. We have no idea what she's capable of, considering she is noticeably young but also is treated seriously by others. And now, in order to save Yang, she goes against the order that Raven gave her — to never show her Semblance unless extremely necessary, or her life depends on it. If any outsiders ever learned of her power, she would be a target for the rest of her life. But at that second, Vernal wanted to save her sister above anything else.

And so, with a flick of her fingers and the sway of her arms, Vernal could control the wind. She literally started slashing Grimm left and right, splitting them apart with nothing but air pressure. She could blow them away easily if they approached, creating this natural barrier of invisible force. Her light green Aura was flaring up around her. It's one of the coolest fight scenes in the volume, and it reveals to us Vernal's secret. The Ancestral Semblance: Wind.

She easily kills everything on her way, and manages to take Yang back from the teeth of the Beowolves. By then she was heavily wounded, bleeding and bitten all over. Vernal starts carrying Yang away, and soon Raven also jumps in to cover them. Once the whole squad is gathered back in one place, Raven draws her sword.

She slices the air, creating a red portal.

They all jump in, and arrive back at the camp instantly. A Grimm tries to stick himself inside, but then Raven closes the portal and cuts the Grimm in half — quickly melting on the floor. The rest of the tribe watch them suddenly appear in front of them, and they erupt in cheer. Among all the screaming, Vernal holds Yang and tears up after seeing how much damage she endured. Yang barely opens her eyes and gives her a thumbs up. "Thanks... Vinnie..."

...

We skip forward several hours, already at night time of that same day.

The Branwen are all surrounding the campfire, as they usually do to eat and talk. Tonight they were celebrating Shay's survival, and it instantly gives off this impression that everyone likes him for some reason. Everyone was questioning what happened to him — he didn't want to go into detail… but he'll gladly explain with over-the-top visuals.

He was bringing a huge bag of a million Lien from his mercenary job, when suddenly he was surprised by a hundred Grimm in a rainstorm. He managed to kill them well enough by baiting them into a cave with limited space, but then he was faced with two squads of A-class Huntsmen who were hunting said army of Grimm, and he ended up defeated. He did manage to kill one of the Huntsmen despite being surrounded and outnumbered, and it was the coolest shit ever. It seems this story fooled everyone, except Raven.

From here we can immediately get a good sense of his personality through the way he tells the story. And well, he's simply a complete, utter, nasty bastard, who's too sure o himself. A guy so easily hateable that the only place he can belong is with a ring of assholes like the Branwen. He doesn't try to hide or even pretend to be good. To put in comparison, imagine Micah Bell, but ten times worse. By the way he talks to Raven, we also get this feeling that he is a deep thorn within the tribe, and she trusts him more than she should.

He compliments the new girl (Yang) for being hot and strong, and says some other… unsettling things. But once he learns from Niko that she's Raven's daughter, he coils back like a sly dog. However, his face doesn't lie about that fact that it made him even more excited about her. If he already sounds like the worst character to you, it's about to get way worse.

Yang and Vernal are sitting noticeably apart from everyone else — so far that the campfire light doesn't get to them. They are eating a stew side by side. Yang looks down, and her body is covered in bandages. Vernal asks, "Are you alright?"

"Vinnie… how did we go back to camp so fast?" Yang asked. Vernal looks down and doesn't answer, so Yang continues, "I can still barely remember… My mom made something, and suddenly we are here… Please, I need you to tell me what it was."

Vernal took a deep breath, checked to see if the others were watching, and then began saying, "two weeks ago… when she brought you here for the first time, she arrived with you the same way. Miss Raven has this power to create a passage between two places so we can travel — you call it Semblance, right? Once every five months, she orders us to grab our things, and so she uses that power to send us away. This is not our only home… We have a few others. I don't like most of them, but she said it was a good way to keep us safe… And when she arrived with you, she ordered us to not talk about it… I'm sorry."

Yang remained silent for a long while. "So that means… she could've sent me back home any time, in a matter of seconds?"

"… Yeah… I guess so."

Yang just kept staring at her plate for a while, with a clear look of disappointment. Everything was going so well for a time, and now it was quickly going downhill. She had hope that her mother was a good person despite everything. She wanted to believe that Qrow and her father were wrong, and that Raven was wrongfully accused of being a traitor. But now Yang thinks back to all the things she said, and she realizes the truth. Raven was never a good person, and never tried to be. Raven was just… a wild animal. If anything, Yang allowed her hope to blind her. All that she achieved here was having her hopes crushed. Her father was right, and so was Raven herself… maybe it would've been better if they never met.

Yang looks at Raven, who is simply looking at the fire and eating. A face of apathy like there are never any thoughts or regret in her soul. The red fire light made her look so much more evil than usual. But then Yang looked a little to the right… and saw Shay looking directly at her, smilling. Bedroom eyes and a wink. It spooked her enough to look away.

"So that's Shay…" she said, then giggled, "I've met uglier, believe it or not."

"Yeah… he…" Vernal said, but stopped herself.

"You really don't like him, do you?" Yang replied.

"He's… a bad guy… he's gross… and…" Vernal stopped herself again.

Her sudden shift set off a red flag to Yang. She sat towards Vernal and looked serious.

"Vinnie… is there something wrong? You can tell me."

"What? No! There's… everything is fine."

"… He did something, didn't he?" Yang asked.

Vernal seemed distressed, and couldn't look Yang in the eyes. She didn't want to think about it.

"It's a secret, okay… You don't have to know…"

…

And that was the last red flag that could've possibly been lifted. Yang's heart started beating faster, there was a buzzing in her ear, and everything else went silent. Though she was ready to burst in anger, she forced a smile and said, "You… you know you can trust me, right? I promise, I won't tell anyone. If something is wrong, you need to tell me, remember? I'm still your big sister, right?"

Vernal was looking back and forth between the table and Yang's eyes. She then made a hand motion to call Yang closer, and she spoke in her ear. And… we can figure out what she said, no matter what exactly happened. Some won't get it. Some will think it's abuse. and some will think it's... worse. Maybe it's all of those things, or maybe it's something else entirely. We the audience never get to know what happened, and that's the part that makes it most infuriating and ominous.

...

Vernal then immediately recoiled back. It was something so embarassing to her that she immediately looked down in shame, trembling from whatever memory just resurfaced. "He said… to not tell anyone… And even if did… no one would do a thing about it, anyway…"

Yang said nothing afterwards. She simply took a moment to compute the information, or perhaps… imagine the horror. Her mind was racing, but soon she snapped out of it. She took a deep breath, and then smiled sweetly. She patted Vernal on the head, making the girl look back at her. She couldn't help but notice that Yang's eyes had suddenly turned their color to bloody red. "Thanks for trusting me, Vinnie. Don't worry… I'll fix everything for you."

She then stood up and started walking towards the campfire.

Vernal called her to stop, but Yang didn't listen. The camera focuses on Yang's hand, as she slowly makes a fist so dense that her veins start popping. Her Aura was engulfing her fist like fire. We see her face, and she looks to be disassociated to what is about to happen. Her eyes are blank and half closed, her fake smile is murderous.

Finally we cut to Shay. He's eating away his food, and then he senses Yang's Aura flaring up behind him. He turns around and sees my favorite shot of the volume. Yang is arched to deliver a powerful haymaker punch. THE most powerful attack in her arsenal. Her body is covered in shadows. The only thing we can immediately see is her red eyes, bloodshot and looking down on him with unbridled anger. "Hey-" Shay utters, before taking the hit right on his face.

It didn't just send him flying — Shay was hit with so much power towards the ground that he was sent crashing through it, forming a deep trail into the earth as he went. He only stopped once he hit the piked wall of the camp, destroying it. She plowed about twenty meters of earth using his face. Everyone looked in shock as she did that, but Raven…

Raven smiled for the first time this volume, as she saw Yang's red eyes.

Despite taking that hit with no preparation at all, Shay simply stood up, put his jaw in the right place in order to talk, and kept staring at Yang. "Nice cheap shot, blondie. Now… how do you plan to repay me for this?"

"I'm gonna kill you…" Yang said.

She walked towards him with no fear in those red eyes. And naturally, what follows is a boxing match that gets cheered on by the rest of the tribe, while Vernal just screams for Yang to stop. Shay was notoriously strong, what subverts a bit of his scummy personality. He's not just a pathetic vile moron — he has the power to back up his evil, and that is what makes him true villain. However, what was clear to him and everyone else is that he couldn't beat an enraged Yang on his own… so he quickly drew his switchblade from his sleeve and slashed Yang in the arm as she punched. It started bleeding immediately.

"How do you like MY cheap shots, huh?-" he was saying, but got punched in the face again. Even with her blood spilling out, Yang ignored the pain to hit him by surprise. Shay proceeded to slash her in several other places, but it wasn't slowing her down at all. Yang was completely ignoring her own safety in order to cause as much pain as possible. It's a morbidly satisfying beat down, and very violent. At the last instance, Yang was about to cave his skull, just as Shay held his switchblade, about to stab her in the heart.

Raven suddenly appears in between them, throwing them away from each other.

Yang got up anyway, and started walking back to continue the fight. Just then Vernal rushed in and held her back, begging her to stop. There was a silence, but for that one second, as they saw those red eyes, Yang felt like everyone in there feared her power. They feared and respected her. She walked towards the campfire, and destroyed it with a single kick, leaving them all in darkness. She shouted, "THE NIGHT IS OVER!"

They remained in silence for a little while, and just like that, slowly backed away from her and went to their separate tents in silence. Yang signaled Vernal to do the same, and Raven pushed Shay away to go lick his wounds in bed. Yang then walked up to Raven and told her, "In your tent. Now."

Raven followed her without complaint, and simply stood there as Yang started to tear her down in one furious rant.

By this point Yang gave in to anger and started accusing Raven of all the lies. Everything was in doubt now.

I don't have the perfect dialogue of what I want Yang to throw at her, but I will list a few focus points: First, she broke her promise and allowed the village to be destroyed due to their actions. Second, she lied about the difficulty of taking Yang back home, now knowing that Raven's Semblance allows her to traverse the world instantly. After the second reason, it immediately becomes clear to Yang that Raven literally could appear any time for the last twenty years to talk with her daughter and family, but simply chose not to. Fourth, Raven is a lying whore, and Yang is no longer afraid to call her names or be upfront. And lastly, she comes to understand the fact that she's surrounded by murderers and thieves, realizing that all of Raven's garbage are things she either stole or killed to have. Raven wasn't just irresponsible and mean — she was a psychopath.

And throughout this whole tirade, Raven didn't attempt to defend herself. She even seemed amused by Yang's rant, having a sly smile the whole time. It doesn't take long for Yang to start flipping shit over and breaking stuff due to her anger. She wanted Raven to take her seriously, and that smile was pissing her off. Her spree only came to a close once she spotted something important within the tent. After throwing a wardrobe to the ground, Yang sees a bunch of stuff falling down… but one was special.

A single brown fedora slowly danced around in the air, and fell right in front of her.

She looked at it, and her eyes suddenly lost all the fire in them.

It was detective Braun's hat.

…

And so, with that simple sight, Yang gained back all her memories from the night of the invasion — the ones blurred by her anger. She instantly remembered her fight with Adam, her defeat, and Braun's sacrifice to save her. She remembered everything, and how the last thing he did was put this hat on her head. Yang began to cry as she held his hat close to her chest. Her angry red eyes were gone, replaced by a deep guilt and sadness. "You told me… you told me all my friends were okay… but just like every other time… you lied…

WHY DO YOU ALWAYS LIE?!" Yang shouted.

"… What good would the truth bring you anyway?" Raven said.

"He died… to protect me… that old… bastard… why?" Yang said through her tears. "It was my fight… I was being foolish… I didn't obey him… I should've been the one to die… why… What's wrong with me?… Why can't I just grow up already?… Why can't I control myself?… when does this anger go away?…"

"It will never go away, Yang… It's a part of who you are. What is the point of suppressing it? It gives you strength. It helped you survive. It knows what you really want, and it will always be there to help you, even when you are alone. It's what makes us who we are now… it's what makes you like me." Raven said.

"I don't want to be alone…" Yang said.

She looked up, eyes still purple and teary. "I don't want to be like you!"

Yang stood up, and looked right into her face. "It doesn't matter what excuse you have, or for what reason you left. All you are now… is a coward! You threw away your friend, your family, the life you could've lived with us, and for what?! Just so you could be free?! To surround yourself with awful people?! To have no one to love?! To kill people you don't like?!… You're no different than a Grimm… you're just a monster!

Dad was right… I regret ever knowing you existed!… I already have a mom, and her name was Summer Rose!… I was not even her daughter, but the love she gave was… it was pure… it was something you couldn't have given in a million years!" Yang finished.

During this last rant Yang walked towards Raven, while she backed away. It led them outside, where everyone could see and hear Yang talk. Raven's face of apathy slowly crumbles into fear and genuine distraught. Those words now were hitting hard as hell — thicker than any blade. She tried so hard to win Yang over, but she didn't do it with love — she did it with manipulation, lies and deception. All it did was make her situation worse. In the end Yang didn't punch her or anything. She shrugged off her tears, put on Braun's hat, and walked off.

Raven took a second to process these emotions, and then shouted, "Hey… where do you think you're going?!"

"Away… and I will never come back. Pray that I do not, because if I do, it won't be for a talk." She replied.

She turned around and said one last poison, "Vernal is coming with me."

"… No." Raven said, sharpening her eyes. "I'll not let you take her! I gave her a home, I taught her how to survive, how to fight, how to live! I saved her! I-"

"Did you?" Yang interrupted, before walking back to face her. "You don't know a goddamn thing about her, you moron! You dare call yourself a leader? A mother, even?! Let's be honest here… I saw what she was capable of this morning… I saw her power… now I know why you kept her around… or who knows… maybe you killed her parents yourself, just so you could take her… Sounds like something you'd do… Tell me, does she make you feel safe?… or maybe it makes you a little bit proud that you were able to fool someone so strong into loving an awful woman like you… But I will not let her spend a single more second in this filth!… With your gang of disgusting degenerates, and their coward, weak and selfish leader!" Yang finished saying it right on her face.

…

Yang's words made Raven feel weak in a way she never felt before. She never faced this feeling of being a failure, because there was never anyone above her. There is no one else to judge her. No one to give her a dose of reality. Yang was the first in twenty years. The first one to give her happiness, make her feel justified… but in the end, she completely shattered every last bit of that love. The outrage, mixed with the watchful eyes of her peers, and the enraged desire to never show weakness… immediately made Raven react with violence.

And so begins one of the saddest scenes in the entire series.

Raven, overcome by rage, starts savagely beating up her own daughter, who refuses to throw a punch back. A long, wordless, and raw beat down. Everyone was watching. We mostly just show random images from the faraway scenary, while hearing the punches being dealt one by one. In the end, Yang is on the ground — bleeding, bruised and unconscious. Raven stands above, breathing heavily. She said, "I am the leader… of this tribe… and I decide… what goes…

No one is leaving… not even you."

With one of the most violent moments in the series done, we arrive at the end of another section.

Commentary (spoilers): Yang's story is a feast of pure character. The differences between Yang and Raven are still interesting to point out, and they generate enough drama to make this my favorite of the four stories. Yang is a character who is likable, but had very few highlights in terms of development throughout the start of the series. All she ever displayed was either pure love, and sometimes pure hatred. Her pure love is what makes her different from the Branwen; it's what makes her better than Raven. They are opposites in every way, but Yang's anger turns her into someone that Raven likes. She attempted to nurture Yang's hunger for freedom, but failed. She tried to fuel her hatred, and failed. Even if it wasn't clear, all that Raven ever wanted was to be accepted. To feel justified for her evil deeds. If she could convince Yang, the one she abandoned, that she was right about the path she took, then Raven could finally let go of all regret. But what happened was the opposite, and so Yang herself, filled with pity instead of anger, breaks their bond forever. But at that point, Raven couldn't allow herself to be weak. She could never show weakness to anyone of the tribe, because she knew that would be her doom. And so she beats down her own daughter in cold blood, to reclaim what she calls freedom. Raven has finally… truly lost it. As she looked down at Yang, she understood that she finally claimed absolute freedom; having no more connection to the past. And for that, I believe Raven is one of the most complex characters in this rewrite.

At this point anyone would want to learn more, but sadly she only has one more section in this story. And also, a quick note about Vernal. I don't want to specify what sort of abuse she suffered on the hands of Shay, because the mystery makes it even more interesting and horrible to think about. But if by any means we are forced to reveal it, we will just go the PG13 route and say she was beaten and poorly-treated by Shay her whole life for being the only other girl in the tribe. It's boring, but I won't include a plotline that might get this show canceled. Alright, let's end this storyline now.

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Now it's time to cap both Yang and Ruby's story.

Yang woke up in a daze the next morning. She was lost in the dark, and she was restrained by her arms. Once she woke up fully, she realized that she was tied to a cross by heavy chains, kept on her knees. She was in a dark cave, and due to her injuries she couldn't muster up the power to free herself. She was now with Detective Braun's hat on her head, and it will never go away anymore — it's oficially part of her design now. Soon she starts hearing steps in the cave, and then she spots Shay entering.

He was smoking a cigarette, and silently made his way towards her. Yang kept silent.

"you look much better on your knees." Shay said, giggling. He kneeled down to her level and continued, "Raven went away without saying much, and she left me in charge. I was hoping to kick the shit out of you, but… I've been told that only makes you stronger. Alright, it's fine…"

He suddenly picked his cigar and started putting it out on her shoulder. Yang's Aura was frail, so it hurts just like she is a normal person. She gasps as the scorch mark is left in her skin, leaving a burning pain. Shay asked, "I know how to do much worse things. Wanna see?"

Yang looked up and spat on his face… and he smiled, as it slid down his cheek. "Your choice, sweetie."

Shay raises his switchblade slowly and grabbed her shirt, about to cut off her top. But then, they heard...

"HEY!" Someone shouted, making him stop. It was Vernal, suddenly apppearing at the entrance.

"Hello, cherry… Raven said you're not supposed to come here." Shay said.

"Get away from her…!" Vernal said. Immediately, ominous winds started flowing around her and into the cave, making a sinister whistle. It made Shay shrug, and leave without saying anything else. Seeing her take a stand genuinely shocked him, and so he had to run. Now the two girls were alone, and so Vernal walked to Yang and gave her a bit of water from her canteen. "Damn it Yang, why did you have to provoke Miss Raven like that?"

"… where am I?" Yang asked.

"It's the ruin's grotto… she wanted to leave you here to calm down." Vernal said.

"Vinnie… I have to get out of here… I need to go back home… Get these things off me." Yang said. Naturally Vernal refused. Yang had no chance of going into the wild after being heavily wounded from her battles with the Grimm, Shay and Raven yesterday. Yang fears that Raven will never let her go, and since she likely won't survive what comes next, she has one last appeal to Vernal.

"Vinnie, listen to me… If I don't make it… you have to go without me… This tribe… these people don't care about you… you know that… You need to run away, as fast as you can… I'm sure you can take care of any monster that comes your way… and when you get to Vale City, you will find people… Ruby Rose… Tai Xiaolong… Qrow… Glynda… Ozpin… tell them about me, and they will help you… I promise, Vinnie… You deserve… better than this…"

Yang passes out. Even though Vernal hates the thought of losing Yang, she promises to help her out of here, once the best opportunity arises...

...

And look, a day or so later, there it is.

Qrow and Ruby, after weeks of travel, finally spots the Branwen hideout ruins from very far. Here he finally gives outside exposition to Ruby, revealing that Yang has been with her birth mom this whole time. However, she's not a good person at all — she leads the Branwen tribe of thieves, hired mercenaries and overall assholes. It's been a whole month with her, so Qrow figures she's already completely sick of Raven's shit. The rescue plan was the following: Qrow will go in guns blazing and kill everyone who doesn't want to give Yang back. Perfect plan. But this time, instead of telling Ruby to go away, he shows some development by allowing her to cover him from a distance, and tells her to use the Dust ammunition. She only comes in directly if the situation absolutely calls for it.

And so Qrow downs two bottles of five-hundred year old wine, puts his sword on his back, and nonchalantly walks towards the camp. He goes so far as to whistle a song. Once he gets close enough, he starts seeing things and smells a putrid scent of the wild thieves. Suddenly, two Branwen tribe members jump from the tall grass to attack him from behind. Just then, two beams of white light appear from the distance, hitting the two mercenaries and going through their bodies. Qrow didn't even look at them — he said, "If you don't stay down, next time she won't miss your heads."

More of the same followed. More members of the tribe jumped in together to kill Qrow, but he fought them off with such absurd ease that he barely had to look at them. Qrow knew the true battle was yet to come, so he wasn't going to waste himself yet. He and Ruby put all of them on the ground and move to the camp walls. Once there, he is met with Odion and Niko. They both looked scared shitless to see Qrow's face, but he was happy. "Oddie? Dormouse? You assholes are still alive? How about we fix that?!"

Qrow proceeds to fight the high tier members of the tribe, and if I wasn't in detail about this earlier, Niko uses mostly ranged attacks like throwing knives, while Odion goes head on with a huge baseball bat with a nail at the end. He's the only one of the two to showcase his Semblance. Odion has the power to make his entire body become really bouncy like a spring, and he can use that to jump around the ground and trees at insane speed, but it doesn't seem to surprise or even intimidate Qrow. As usual, It's just a cool fight scene — Qrow and Ruby kick absolute ass, to kind of redeem their previous struggle against Tyrian. There's one final joke at the end, as Niko, the little high-pitched prick, throws away his weapons and promises to defeat Qrow using his overpowered Semblance as a last resort. "You son of a bitch, you forced me to use MY SEMBLANCE! THIS IS THE END FOR YOU! PREPARE TO DIE-"

Just then he gets shot by a Dust bullet from Ruby, putting him on the ground.

Qrow shrugs and finally enters the camp by slashing the wall in half. It was noticeably empty, since he already defeated 90% of the tribe. But there was one person there. Shay was peacefully eating bread and roasted meat as if it was no big deal. "The prodigal asshole returns… how have you been doing, black liver?" Shay asks.

"I just had some fun with your comrades outside. Didn't seem to interest you, huh?"

"You could've finished them off and spared me the trouble of patching them up later." Shay said. "Let me guess, you came to see Raven? Sorry, but she just walked away and told me to manage. Don't know where to, but she looked upset."

"Nah-nah, actually I came here for my niece. Her name is Yang. Knowing the piece of shit you are, I'll assume you two already made acquaintances… tell me, how did her fist taste like?" Qrow said, instantly turning his smile into a deeply ominous gaze.

"Yang, eh?… So that was her name… I thought it was dumb bitch." Shay said with a smile, triggering Qrow to attack.

He rushed in, but to the surprise of even the audience, Shay is actually capable of squaring with Qrow. His switchblade can actually turn into a much bigger sword with a glowing blue edge, thanks to expensive Atlas technology. He and Qrow continue to figh for a while. "So who's your friend up above the tree? You said it was a her, right? You know I love when you bring me new chicks. We're going to have a nice chat later, after I'm done with you!" Shay said.

It was a clear taunt, and it worked incredibly well. Qrow got furious. Shay was hoping that the rage would make Qrow careless, but Qrow quickly started to overwhelm him. Unfortunately for Shay, Qrow never stopped getting stronger since their last fight many years ago. The difference between the two became evident once he got serious. "You really thought you were on my level all this time?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Qrow said and laughed. He did wonder now… why did Ruby stop shooting?

...

Ruby spotted someone leaving the camp through her scope, but she didn't take the shot, since it was just a young girl. She ran out of Dust bullets, and decided to go after her. Vernal chose to take this opportunity and flee with Yang while the others fight. She cuts her chains with wind slashes and drags her along. Yang was half conscious, as she was kept in the cave for a couple of days already and was left to starve and suffer from her wounds. As they leave the cave… Vernal is immediately met with Ruby.

She looked at Yang, and shed a small tear. "Yang… I knew you were still alive… I'm sorry I took so long."

She then shrugged off her joy and was back to her serious self. "Let her go!" she said to Vernal.

The girl was in a hurry and thought Ruby was just an enemy, so she was willing to fight. Ruby and Vernal have a quick match. She manages to hit Ruby with a good slash of wind, cutting her leg. Ruby didn't get exactly what her powers were, but she knew it wasn't time to fuck around. She used Rose Burst to phase through all of Vernal's wind attacks, and hit her back. Eventually they fought up close with their swords.

"Yang… she's my big sister! I'm not gonna let you hurt her!" Vernal said.

"WHAT?! She's my sister, not yours!" Ruby said.

Eventually Yang managed to recompose from all the daze and pain, only to realize the two people she loves are fighting. Moved by her desire to protect, she quickly gets up and holds the two girls in place before they could hurt each other any longer, and instantly falls on top of Ruby. Vernal now recognizes Ruby from Yang's stories, but Ruby wasn't up for a talk. She quickly grabbed Yang and jumped away into the tree line, forcing Vernal to chase. Vernal told her to wait, but Ruby kept jumping from tree to tree without listening. Ruby used Rose Burst to get more distance, but so did Vernal use bursts of wind to catch up. Suddenly the chase is cut, when they hear and feel a shockwave coming from the camp. Ruby goes to see it, and Vernal follows.

…

Qrow by that point was easily beating the fuck out of Shay, marking his third L in a row. Before he went down though, Shay had one last trick. His Aura seemed to change as he stood up again. In one last attempt to win, he held onto Qrow as tendrils of his Aura came out of his fingers and pierced Qrow's Aura. It bonded the two together and paralyzed them in place. We see the grass and flowers around Shay quickly losing color and falling apart, as if their life cycle got sped up. Shay said, "You got greedy, black liver… Did you forget what I can do?"

Shay explained a little bit of his Semblance, "Decay". It allows him the power to wither and destroy anything he touches — even Auras. It was a direct attack on Qrow's soul, as we could see his arms start to dry and wrinkle. It caused him an awful lot of pain, but as we know, pain never stopped Qrow from doing anything. He bounced back with a surprise strike, and was able to seriously hurt Shay while in close range, cutting his power short. Qrow mocked him, saying his stupid Semblance is a coward's tool. He should try using it on someone of his own caliber more often, instead of innocent weak people. This little moment is just a setup for the next volume, so don't mind if it looks too stupid.

Qrow spent a while torturing this guy for fun, but suddenly the real match appeared.

Raven fell from the sky in an absolute badass way, shaking the ground.

…

She and Qrow exchange the same glance, with the same red eyes.

Raven said, "I was away for three days, Shay… three days."

"Sis… you're as dashing as ever… despite the extra weight." Qrow said with a bow.

"Qrow… What could you possibly want? Another scar, perhaps?" Raven said.

"A guy can't catch up with his family once in a while?"

"We… are not… family anymore. Wasn't I clear that day?"

"Trick question, of course. I didn't mean you. You know why I'm here." Qrow replied.

"Let me guess… your precious home crumbled to dust, like I said it would. And now, you're looking for someone else to take care of your lazy ass, until eventually you kill them too? Sounds just like you." Raven said.

"Yang… I can smell she's here… and she'll be coming back with us." Qrow said, making Raven draw her sword. "Aw come on. Do we really have to do this every time? Listen, I don't pay much attention to the kids, but even I know she would be sick of you by this point."

Raven frowns, and so she dashes at him in insane speed. They clashed their swords.

The simple clash was enough to create a shockwave, and the sound echoed around the forest. Leaves fell, and the ruins crumbled a bit more. And so ensued the second best fight of this volume. It's fast, deadly and wordless. These two are at the absolute peak of their abilities. In a way, this even looks a bit like Ozpin's fight with Wrath, just from the way they disappear into thin air from their sheer speed. The fight is long and arduous for both of them, but it was clear that Raven, even after all these years, still held superiority over Qrow in skill and power.

Eventually Ruby and Yang arrived, with Nerval right behind them. "Uncle Qrow!"

He turned to see Yang in Ruby's arms. Qrow wasn't stupid, so when he realized he couldn't win easily, he decided to bolt away with Yang. Raven gave chase, but before she left, she pointed straight at Vernal with her sword and said, "You… stay right here! I promise, I won't let them take her!"

And so she left, and Vernal was left behind with a feeling of powerlessness. She started making the links within her head, and realized Yang's family came to rescue them. She didn't know what to do, but she wanted Yang to be safe above all else. It didn't take long for her to disobey Raven, and run after the fight. She picked Yang's iron gauntlets from her tent, and jumped into the forest.

Due to his super speed, Qrow actually went pretty far. Raven was right behind them, but she actually didn't need to chase. Now we see Raven's Semblance for how broken it is. "Instant Connection" — allows Raven the power to instantly create a portal, or simply teleport herself towards somewhere she can see, or to a place or a person that she has a fond conception of. She was teleporting all over the forest all the time, and delivering cheap shots at both Ruby and Qrow. At full power she was unstoppable. The most decisive strike came when she teleported out of Yang's back again. Red light suddenly appeared, and out came Raven with a slash that got Qrow in his chest. The weather had gotten worse and worse. Now the skies grew dark and the clouds were racing — strong winds were pushing the trees.

As Qrow gets his ass kicked, Ruby comes and blocks one of Raven's attacks to save him, but gets immediately punished by another slash. Raven tells her, "Young Ruby Rose… have you learned nothing from your mother's death?"

"… nice to meet you too, aunt Raven." Ruby said with a hint of sarcasm.

The fight/chase would play out for a while longer. Bit by bit, Yang was gaining back conscience until she was fully awake. Both Qrow and Ruby were wounded and slowing down, while Raven only became more deranged and vicious as the fight dragged on. Eventually they all ran into a dead end. The forest ended with a massive fall, and there was nothing to see down below. It was an endless ravine with boiling black sludge at the very bottom. They were cornered at the edge, and so Raven was able to easily take Yang away from their grasp and kick Qrow off the cliff.

Ruby followed him, using her scythe to lodge into the edge and grab him in the air. Now they were literally hanging, as the scythe of Crescent Rose was slowly tearing through the ground. They were about to fall. Raven stood up there, staring down and preventing Ruby from using her Semblance to climb.

"If you two survive this… trust that I will know. And I hope you two are not foolish enough to ever return." Raven said.

…

Yang was feebly getting herself off the ground. Ruby and Qrow were being destroyed by Raven, and she felt useless. She needed to help them, but she was wounded and her Aura was weakened. As a last resort, she crawled towards a nearby tree… and started hammering her own head against the solid trunk, over and over again. Her forehead immediately started to bleed and trickle down her face, but she kept going. Her Aura was flaring up, and as she was done, her final headbutt broke the tree in half. She was ready, and as she shrugged off the blood from her eyes, she saw the predicament of Ruby and Qrow. Yang jumped to save them — dashing past Raven.

She took hold of the scythe by the blade and pulled it upwards, sinking her bare fingers into it and making her hands bleed. With the last remaining strengths of her life, Yang kept on holding them. Raven watched in shock as she did it, and soon turned into anger. She yelled out in frustration for the first time, "Yang! What is wrong with you?! Why is it so hard for you to think?! You have no strength left — if you don't stop, you're going to die! You're going to die for a pathetic drunk and his annoying little red suck up! Is that what you want?!"

"My family… They are my family… and I will… I will protect them..." Yang said, as her whole body was trembling due to exhaustion and wounds, but is still being moved by an unparalleled level of determination. She could barely spare a thought to anything else.

"The tribe is your family! It's your birthright! It has been ours for centuries! Those you are trying to save are deserters! They abandoned our legacy just to become paws of someone! They left you to fight and die alone when you needed them most! Is that what you call family?! I saved you! I gave you life! I can give you anything that you can possibly want! You, me, Vernal and everyone else… and all you have to do is let go…

Let them go… live life on your own terms!"

As she monologues, her words enraged Yang to the point she was flashing in and out of her red eyes. Her love for Ruby and Qrow was directly fighting with her hatred for Raven. But after a long and arduous battle of flashbacks… It seemed like the good side won. Yang finally made up her mind, now and forever. Her body stopped trembling. There was silence. Her following words were quiet, as if she's about to sleep. They were peaceful.

"Tell Vernal… that I'm sorry… maybe she'll never forgive me, but I know she's strong… she will know what to do… and she will be okay…

Ruby… Uncle Qrow… thanks for coming to save me, and… sorry for needing to be saved… I never wanted to cause you so much trouble… I love you…

I'm sorry mom, but I'm not a little brat anymore… I can't just run and be free…"

Yang turned her head around, and showed Raven a face of peace and joy. The inner struggle… has been completely eradicated. This is Yang. No anger, no hatred, and no doubt. She finishes, "I have to clean up… my own mistakes now…"

…

…

A thunder roared far away in the distance, and so it started to rain. After a while in silence, covered in droplets, Raven says, "You're strong, Yang… you are. After all… even if we will never be together… you're strong… just like I hoped you'd be… you're real a warrior… and you're still my daughter…"

Raven soundly drew her sword as she looked down.

"It's time that I show you the respect you deserve." Raven said. And so, without wasting a single second… Raven slashes at Yang's back with all her power and speed. Yang was still holding Crescent Rose, so she had no way to dodge or defend herself. The camera freezes, turning black and white as a spray of blood suddenly flies in the air. Time has stopped for this short moment, just so we can appreciate how messed up all this is.

…

Raven puts her sword back in the sheath, and once she does so, a gust of wind comes by. Raven not only cut Yang's back, but also sliced her long blond hair in half. The strands break off and fly into the wind. Detective Braun's hat falls off her head and into the abyss. After her last remaining strengths are numbed by the pain, Yang falls off into the edge, along with Ruby and Qrow. Their faces are overcome with absolute shock.

We continue following their quick descent into the bottomless ravine. Qrow suddenly receives an adrenaline spark filled by his anger, outrage and disbelief. He does some crazy shit with his sword and Ruby's scythe, and manages to somehow pin them to the wall before being engulfed into the darkness below.

Ruby only managed to catch Yang. She was motionless — body getting colder, and no response. She held onto Yang with a hug, crying as she could feel life slowly escaping her body. Ruby kept repeating her name again and again. Eventually she sees Braun's hat dancing in the air as it fell, and she catches it before it is lost. Qrow doesn't allow himself to be weak now. He holds Ruby's red hood with his teeth and starts climbing the mountain with all his will power, disregarding his injuries and getting his fingers destroyed as he sinks them into the cracks. The rain wasn't helping him either. This would take a while, and he doesn't have much time.

He screams, "RAVEEEEEEEEEEENN!"

...

Raven just stares at the edge of the cliff for long minutes, not moving a single inch. The rain became heavier and louder. We don't see her eyes anymore — they are covered in shadows as she looks down silently. Soon, Vernal arrives at the scene an walks up behind Raven. She asks, "Miss Raven… what happened? Where did Yang go? Did she... did she escape?"

Raven said, "I'm sorry, Vernal… Yang… she's gone…

They killed her."

…

Vernal already started breathing heavily. "Wh… what? What?! But… But they…"

Raven turned around to face her. You can't really tell if she's crying heavily, or if it's just the raindrops on her face — it has to look ambiguous. She kneels down and hugs Vernal, probably for the first time since forever. The little girl was so confused. Raven then said, "I couldn't save her… I'm sorry… I'm so sorry… but I promise you… I'll not allow them to hurt anyone else from us… You're my only daughter now… I'll keep you safe… no matter what…"

Vernal had no response. She simply started crying, and didn't say a thing. Her eyes were wide open, and her pupils shaking. Eventually Raven got up, and started walking away. "This place will never be safe anymore. We can never go back. We have to get everyone, and move away. There's no time now… come on." She said, walking slowly into the woods, and disappearing.

Vernal closed her eyes and kept her hand close to her chest, breathing heavily. The girl was… truly broken. Unsure, scared, and guilty. Her hands were trembling, but there was one last thing to do. The rain was getting her soaked. She takes a deep breath, and suddenly her face loses all emotion. In the end she tried to be like Raven, pretending that this loss didn't hurt her as much as it actually did. She takes Yang's gauntlets from her bag, and puts them by the cliff.

"We will always… be sisters." Vernal says.

And so the girl disappears into the rain…

.

.

Yang slowly wakes up after what felt like an eternity in darkness. The sun is hitting directly in her eyes, and everything has a surreal, dream-like appearance. She is in a white room, dressed in a white gown, covered in white sheets in a big white bed, with the bright sunlight all over her voluptuous body. White bandages were all over her arms. The shots we get of her are close and secluded — we can't really see how she looks yet. It gives the overall impression that she's in some sort of heavenly place.

She slowly opens her eyes, staring to the side. She sees Braun's hat and her gauntlets by the bedside table. She slowly sat up, and there she saw Ruby, by the side of her bed. She's sitting in a small chair, and she was crying profusely despite holding a gentle smile. "Ruby…" Yang mumbled.

They didn't need any other words. Their smiles to each other soon turned into giggles, and then laughter. They weren't able to hold their emotions for long, and so Ruby jumped on the bed and hugged Yang with all her might. Sweet and powerful instrumental is playing. While they embraced, Yang looked to the back of the room, and saw Qrow enter through the door. Upon seeing her awake, he smiled. "Uncle Qrow…" Yang said, and soon he also joined in the family hug.

A powerful scene, but far from over. Ruby and Qrow recoil back. Ruby seemed nervous and fidgety.

"What's wrong?" Yang asked.

Ruby started crying a little bit harder, "W-well… I managed to p-patch up your w-wounds and stitch y-your back. We were l-lucky to find this ab-abandoned house in the forest! We found some tools to s-s-save you, b-b-but you still need to re-rest..."

It didn't seem like that was the part that was making Ruby sad. Yang asked again, "Why are you still crying?"

Ruby's face went more pale than it already is. "I-I t-think- (sniff) I think you should… see for yourself."

Ruby pulled up a small mirror from the ground and handed it over to Yang with her hands shaking.

Yang looks at it, and so… we get our first look at the new her.

Her hair was cut short.

...

She looks absolutely adorable. There are hundreds of short hair Yang fanart out there — it's not hard to make her look good with it. Qrow already covered his mouth, and Ruby inches away a bit. Everyone, even the audience, expects Yang to simply burst her lungs inside out from that sight. We've seen her commit atrocities for a single strand, imagine what she would do because of her whole hair being gone. Ruby says, "S-sorry, b-but t-there was no s-saving it… I also had to use what was left of it as stitches. It's kind of weird, b-but it worked…"

"It was me, Yang! It was my idea!" Qrow said, clearly trying to protect Ruby.

The music was building up in a way that it seemed like she would explode.

but in the end, Yang just says… "Alright…"

…

"Aren't you… angry?" Ruby asked.

"Ruby… why would I be angry?" Yang asked, suddenly pulling Ruby by the collar for another long hug. "I'm with my family… It's a beautiful morning… what's there to be angry about?"

They kept that hug for a long while more, and Yang also started crying. Ruby went ahead and grabbed something from her skirt pocket. It was Yang's purple scarf, that she left behind on Vale all that time ago. Ruby wrapped it around her neck and said, "It's good to have you back, sis…"

And so, with one final, sweet embrace… we arrived at the finale of Ruby, Qrow and Yang's section.

Commentary (spoilers): You know… by now I'm lost for words. The scenes just tell it all; they don't have complex themes. I like the action, I like the buildup, I like the encounter between Qrow and Raven, I like the foreshadowing, but above all else I like the ending. Yang chooses ultimately to not succumb to her hatred, and repeat the words of Braun right back at Raven. Every time she allowed hatred to guide her, she only lost, and people died. Here Yang took the final decision and a different approach; not to fight what she hates, but save what she loves. Her decision to completely abandon her hatred is the thing that truly and definitely severs her link to Raven once and for all, and the symbolism lies perfectly on her long hair. There's also beauty in the fact that Raven is the one to cut it; she herself cut off the only thing she had in common with Yang. Now she can finally be her own person, unaltered by the same issues her mother had. That is beautiful.

It's a very good ending, and a nice send off for Raven and Vernal, since we won't see these two at all for a while. Vernal had a small arc, first about learning to love, and in the end, learning to let go; though her character arc ends negatively, the effects that Yang had on her will not disappear. And for Raven, the best part about this arc is seeing this apathetic, violent shell of a woman being torn away piece by piece, as she faces struggles that she never had to deal with before. The basis of motherhood, and the relationship with her daughter. I love the symbolism of Shay; how the arrival of the true worst and most disgusting member of the tribe is the thing that sends Raven into a downward spiral. Truly, making him a Wormtongue like character really works for this story. Unfortunately for us, he will still carry a major role in the next volume, believe it or not. We still have to explain how he got caught, right?

Well, I have no regrets about this chapter. There's a lot of things that could be better; I didn't integrate the other tribe members (Niko and Odion) in the story quite like Vernal and Shay, but I still kept them since I needed more unique characters from this faction to use later. By the way, the ending is just a dumb copy of lord of the rings, personally because I want it that way. The scene can happen anywhere else in the wild, and it doesn't affect the conclusion, just the scene might be less wholesome. I know I'm stupid for putting this here, I believe Weiss's story conclusion should come first, then Blake, and finally Yang and Ruby's. I wrote this first because I wanted to write while it was fresh on my mind. By the way, if you want a visual of her hair as I see it, here it is.

.

.

.

Now we have to conclude the stories of the two other characters.

First let's do Weiss, since again she had another great cliffhanger, and the LONGEST final act.

We don't actually start the section following Weiss. We actually follow her little brother, Whitley, as he wanders alone through the mansion. Klein is there to do whatever the boy wants, but he doesn't want anything. The last remaining days were truly traumatizing, and he has done nothing but think about that scene. Klein doesn't know what to think. Could Weiss really have done that? She and Jacques had argued violently that night, and maybe that was her final straw. However, Whitley didn't think so. After long deliberation, he decides to ultimately believe his sister.

Her last words echoed in his mind. He wanted to believe she was innocent, and was willing to fight for it. Here we reveal Whitley to be an Artemis Fowl kind of kid, having absurd amounts of intelligence and connections that make him a force to be reckoned with despite his age. He orders Klein to start searching for evidence in the destroyed security cameras, while he will review every single bit of footage in this entire mansion for anything. He puts on a white suit and goes to work in his room, which has a huge computer.

...

Now we cut to Weiss.

She was walking aimlessly through the streets of Mantle. Snow was falling and piling everywhere. She was still hurt, but her clothes hid most of the damage. Everywhere she goes there an obvious misery in the air — on the design, people's faces and even the soundtrack. Eventually, after wandering around, she ends up finding the entrance to one of the several mines under the mountain of Atlas. A sea of men and women entered the darkness of the underground side by side, and so the big heavy doors were closed.

Weiss kept walking by the side of the mountain until there was no one in the streets anymore. The last point she saw was this huge road walkway, with hundreds of pipes sticking out of the ground. Weiss was wondering where everyone went, when suddenly a loud buzzer started to ring on that block. She thought that she was found by the cops, but it actually came from the pipes on the ground. It sounded like a warning. And after the buzzer ends, the pipes opened right next to her open up, and this horrible black smog started to shoot out into the air, filling the entire area. It was spreading instead of flowing up, quickly surrounding Weiss. She had no idea what the hell was that nasty stuff, but suddenly she hears:

"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Suddenly someone hooks her neck with a cane, and pulls her away from the smoke. It was a woman. She covers Weiss's mouth and nose with a napkin before she can speak. "don't you know that if you smell that stuff you're a goner?! Come on!"

She dragged Weiss away from that block and inside a safe cabin nearby. Now the woman lets her go, and Weiss can see she's a short old lady with a long blue and black robe. A blue hood is obscuring her face in shadows, and the only thing Weiss can see are two blue lights in that darkness (her eyes apparently). This lady looked weird in too many ways. She scolds Weiss for running straight into the exhaust pipes from the Dust mine. No one has walked that street in years because of the hazard — she's lucky that this woman was around to see her. They are stuck inside the cabin for a while, until the smog cools off with the natural temperature. Weiss looks through the window as the black gas gets expelled into the sky, and soon after that, it starts to rain black snowflakes.

"this place is horrible…" Weiss said.

"You're not from here at all, huh?" the old lady asks.

"I ran away from home…" Weiss replies.

The lady sniffled the air. "Fancy perfume… nice shoes… you're from Atlas city?"

"…You know, thanks for helping me, but I'm in a hurry."

Weiss goes to leave but the old lady stops her. "You look tired, girl… Do you have anywhere to stay?"

"I'm fine… I just need to find a ride out of town." Weiss said.

"You won't. Police and the army closed down everything – no way in or out. Even the patrol around the wall increased, believe it or not. They are trying to find a murderer, or so I heard." The old lady said, and it seemed to have stopped Weiss. She says that she doesn't have any money to give, but the old lady says it doesn't matter — she has a spare room. Weiss is really skeptical, but she admits that she has no other choice. She accepts, and asks, "May I know your name?"

"Maria Blue… you?"

"… Ruby… White?" Weiss spurs out the first name she thinks of.

And so the lady grabbed her cane and walked home, with Weiss right behind her. Weiss could barely get a look at Maria's face, and she spoke in a shady, monotone manner. She could feel an ominous presence coming from this lady, but it was weak. She was swinging her cane in front of her as she walked. In the end Maria lived in a huge, square building with a hundred apartments, just like every other building in this city. They get a lift to the middle floors, and walk an ugly, narrow hallway to the last door. And just as expected, Maria lives in a small, cramped apartment, full of trash and cobwebs… probably like everyone else as well.

Turns out that she needed someone to help around the house a bit, so she's willing to offer Weiss a home so long as she's useful. Weiss feels tricked, but it's only fair. Finally the old lady took off her glasses and put them on the table by the door. They looked clunky now that Weiss can see them better. Maria hooks it up to some machine by the wall, and it seems to start charging it with battery.

Now Weiss understood the weird behavior she had while walking. She realized Maria is blind. By the way she uses her cane, we understand that she doesn't have any bullshit power to help her, like Fox does. Weiss shakes her hand in front of her face to confirm it, and immediately Maria says, "Yes I'm blind. The goggles help me see, but not for long."

"Where did you get such a thing?" Weiss asked in astonishment.

"It was a gift… Come on."

She shows Weiss her new room. It's not impressive, but she has no power to demand anything anymore. Maria allowed her to have a shower, and gave her new clothes for now. Weiss rushed inside the bathroom, which looked as miserable and claustrophobic as all else, but nonetheless she started taking off her clothes. She hid Myrtnaster behind the door, threw away her stolen jacket and took off her fancy dress riddled with slashes from her fight with the iron maiden. Weiss looks at her naked body in the mirror and sees how many wounds she actually has — blood dried on her skin, and bruises were everywhere. She takes a deep breath and starts tidying her hair, and just then…

"It seems like you've seen better days, miss Schnee."

Maria suddenly appeared out of nowhere, literally right beside Weiss as she blinked.

Weiss naturally screams at ear shattering frequency and quickly covers herself with a towel. The old lady doesn't react, and simply stands up facing away from her. Weiss quickly hid behind the shower curtains as well. "When did you get in here?! DON'T MESS WITH ME! I KNEW YOU WERE A WITCH! GET AWAY!" she shouted.

"Oh please, even if I could see, what's there to see, anyway?" she said.

Weiss's face went red like a tomato. "Erg- You- Hey! Screw you!"

"Enough playing around. Come here — I knew you were wounded the second I saw you. Let me help." Maria said, picking up some medicine and bandages from a little shelf under the sink. "trust me girl… it's way worse on the back side."

"How do you know?!" Weiss asks.

"Trust me, will you?" Maria replied.

Weiss was embarrassed and outraged, but Maria's tone and willingness did manage to make Weiss come out. Something about Maria looks familiar, and different from everyone else in this city — she can feel it with her astral senses. Weiss sat on a stool and allowed the old lady to put medicine on her back, while she just held the towel over her chest. She could feel Maria's soft fingers sliding against her skin in search of wounds. Eventually they spoke again.

"How do you know who I am?" Weiss asked.

"I knew your grandfather." Maria said. "He told me quite a lot about you, ever since you were a baby. We were... friends."

"… I still don't understand why you're helping me. Didn't you hear what happened?"

"Well, did you try to kill your father or not? Honestly I don't care. I didn't blame Nikolas when he killed his own father, so I won't blame you either. Most people here hate that man. Mantle is like this because of his monopoly. He had it coming." The old man said.

"I didn't kill him. And don't speak about him like that!… Even if you're right, he's still my father." Weiss said. After a few more seconds, she realized the first thing Maria said. "and don't tell lies about grandpa! He would never do something like that to his own father. He was a good man! Honestly, your sense of humor is palpable!"

"I'm sorry to inform you, but your family's past is not as glamorous as you think. I doubt Nikolas would ever tell the story to his grandchildren, and it doesn't matter anyway. We're in the present." Maria finished. She somehow managed to treat every single wound in Weiss back despite her blindness.

"How did you do that?" Weiss asked.

"Secret…" Maria said, and left the stuff by the sink as she exited the bathroom. "You can do the rest by yourself, I'll let you be. If you're going to run away afterwards, that's your choice. Just don't let the shower running to distract me. The bill is not cheap."

Weiss was left alone to her own thoughts. This lady is weird, but she's sharp. Maria knew her grandfather, so maybe she's trustworthy. Only time will tell. After that we skip the shower — no more half-naked Weiss for you. She comes out of the bathroom wearing a normal white dress with red flowers stamped all over, and it's kind of weird to see Weiss dressed in something so simple. Maria is just sitting in the armchair and staring at the wall, as she listens to music on the pocket radio.

"Say… do you have any way to help me leave this city?" Weiss asks.

"Don't you want to catch that android warrior to clear your name first?" Maria asked.

"Eh- wha- What?! How do you know that?!" Weiss asked.

"Secret… Anyway, once you're fully recovered, you can start thinking of something to do." Maria then picked up her cane and got up. She grabbed her glasses from the machine and put them back on her face, instantly making them glow blue. "I'm going to the store. Behave yourself."

Weiss is left alone in the house. She quickly gets bored and remembers her task to clean it all up.

And so starts one of the funniest moments in the series. She puts on a cute apron and so it begins. Weiss tries to clean a house, something she has no experience on, with old tools that she has no idea how to use. There are brooms, not vacuum cleaners, and there are sponges instead of dishwashers. The montage is funny above all else because she is motivated furiously by her own inability to clean a house. She finds rats, breaks stuff, completely ruins others, and uses cleaning products that taints the color of carpet and drapes; all of it being backed by a funny soundtrack, like that RDR2 house building montage song. When she was done, the place looked absolutely awful in a different way — more ruined than messy.

Maria arrived and Weiss said, "So, what do you think?… It's not that bad, right?"

"… You should probably go to bed." Maria said, coldly.

It was a poor bed, but after not sleeping a whole night, and all the chaos that followed her that day, it felt like paradise. She realized Maria didn't have a room, she just slept sitting on her armchair. For once Weiss felt like she could rest. She thought about her friends, and she hopes to be with them soon. They are the only thing she has left now.

...

Weiss wakes up in the morning before Maria, and as gratitude, she decides to make one horrible breakfast for her. Maria gladly eats it, but constantly expresses how awful it tastes. At that moment, the mail man shoves in the letters from under the door, and Weiss is told to see what's about.

It was actually the bills — absurdly costly for such a horrible little apartment. It made Weiss very upset, but unfortunately this level of comfort is actually way above average for Mantle standards. The worst part is that the landlord found out Maria brought someone to stay at her place, so she'll be charging extra. Maria does the math and realizes she actually won't be able to make ends meet without Weiss's help. She tells the girl to prepare because they are going downtown, into the market. Weiss complains that she might be recognized, but Maria insists that it won't happen if she keeps her hair down. The crowd will be too big and uncontrollable to notice her.

After a short walk, they arrive at the center of the city. The place is packed, and full of merchant stands everywhere, selling the bare necessities to people. It looks a lot like the Vytal festival, but way shittier and messier. Weiss is just this little white spot in this sea of dark and drab colors. We haven't touched on this, but a big percentage of the Atlas population is dark-skinned, including most of the important characters from there, and even Maria herself. Doesn't seem like racism is as big of an issue though, compared to basic rich versus poor problems.

Eventually Maria arrived at her place, and she had to catfight another old lady who took her spot in the market. She scares her off and puts up her tent. It's dark blue, covered in star patterns, and it looks mysterious. It only allows room for two people, two stools, a table and a crystal ball. The sign she put on the tent made it clear. Maria was a street fortune teller, charging five Lien per reading.

"You gotta be kidding me. You're joking right?" Weiss asked.

"It's an honest profession." Maria replied.

"You can't be serious! How do you get money like this? Nobody's so stupid to-"

"Hey look, Lady Blue opened up her shop!" one innocent bystander shouted, and quickly people started putting up a crowd around her. People comment how she can perfectly predict the mishaps of someone's day, and she has been doing it for the last few years. It was gonna be another long day of business. But before she started working, she took Weiss to the side and rushed her to start earning her bread as well.

She pointed Weiss towards a vendor down on the street who was selling fish. She just had to tell him she needed a job, and that Maria was her friend. Weiss did as she told, met the man, and five seconds later he threw a heavy bag of smelling raw fish in her hand. He told her to make a delivery, and she better hurry if she wanted her money.

What follows is a big montage. Basically: Weiss gets a job, does something nasty, gets paid, and then is pointed to the next place she could find work. Rinse and repeat. The whole montage is just her running around and doing things that she barely knows how to do, but is learning quickly. The more she works, the more she absorbs the aggressive and quick paced nature of this place. Everyone speaks with shouting, and they are as rude as it gets. Her self respect was quickly adapting to her current situation, once she realizes she's no longer a princess of anything. It seems that in this short day she is already able to build quite a reputation for herself.

When she returns to Maria, the old lady is glad to see Weiss came back with a purse full of cash. Maria knew that in due time she would be able to buy her way out of the nation. Weiss is tired and angry, but the day is not even halfway over, making her even angrier. There was a lot more work to be done everywhere. "Take your time and make some friends. It goes a long way" Maria said.

After their long shifts, Weiss and Maria go to a pub restaurant. Maria comments how people are talking good about her — Weiss managed to fit in already. Weiss has no idea what she's talking about, and wonders if the next day will be as bad as this one. Maria says, "It gets easier… You fought monsters and survived one of the biggest tragedies of the century… I'm sure you'll get used to being poor. Maybe you'll learn a thing or two." Weiss denies the idea of ever getting accustomed to this, but she will prove herself wrong in short notice. Maria says it's time to go back home, saying she'll cook this time.

...

After that, we picked up with Whitley again.

He was in front of his computer, with dark circles under his eyes from how much he's been working on this. Klein then arrives, saying that the examination he requested was done. The security cameras of the mansion weren't attacked, hacked or shot at all, they simply imploded. As in, damaged from the inside out. Whitley then observed the facts and used logic. He examined the footage that was left behind, and realized that the cameras all broke in a specific order — from the back wall, all the way to the back garden entrance. This means that the perpetrator broke them as he saw them on his way inside. This already proves someone, who couldn't possibly be Weiss, arrived at the mansion that very night. They just have to get an idea of who that person looks like, and that leads Whitley to something weird he spotted.

One of the cameras is positioned in such a way that it reflects the view of the garden through a mirror at the very back of the property. He zoomed in, played in slow motion, and found it. Just before the camera was destroyed, it caught a glimpse of a gray silhouette appearing at great speed from the mirror angle. He did that stupid thing where he zooms and enhances the photo until he can clearly see… the Iron Maiden. "Bingo." Whitley said.

"Young master, it looks like an android robot…" Klein says.

"It does… it will be impossible to pin this crime on a random robot. We need further proof… Now that I think about it… Weiss was wounded when I found her. She must have fought the killer, which means she escaped before the police arrived." Whitley said. He got up from his chair and exited his room as Klein followed. "I'll hack the city's security cameras to try and find our killer. Klein, I want you to look for possible testimony. Make sure that my sister's warrant is interrupted for a few days. Bribe the judge and the police double if you have to."

"As you wish, young master." Klein says, and so ends the scene.

...

Now let's continue following Weiss to the end.

And thus, for the spam of the following week… The local legend of "Ruby White" began.

The fair and handsome lady that simply appeared one day in the market of Mantle, and quickly became the talk of the town. A feisty personality and a heart of gold. Beautiful long white hair and a pretty face. A woman worthy of nobility, but dressed in rags like everyone else. A hard-working girl, who despite her humble situation, had pride and determination to spare.

For that following week, Weiss not just worked for a living, but she became famous within the city for various reasons. Weiss easily adapted to this rushed lifestyle overtime, and as she worked hard, she came to meet and familiarize herself with everyone from the neighborhood. Her natural sense of justice would force her to step in and help others even when she shouldn't, and even if she didn't have the time. She would help adults with second world problems, she would teach children basic schooling, and she could gather up strength to revolt about stuff that is wrong — all without realizing her natural gifts.

She started landing better jobs, people were being nice to her, and she gathered an army of merry men who fell in love with her beauty. People would recognize her walking in the market and offer her free things, compliment her, and thank her for help. She really managed to enchant this small, poor section of her nation, and she did so by being normal, and not fighting monsters.

In one of her many days at the pub restaurant with Maria, she would talk about how Weiss is, without knowing, following the same footsteps as her grandfather. After training at Beacon and returning home, people simply bounded themselves to his good will, and followed him for many years. His popularity allowed him to shape Atlas and find many students and admirers, even Maria herself. Of course, it all went to scrap once the council cracked down on his little public militia of Huntsmen, and forced everyone to be integrated into the army.

Weiss thinks Maria is wrong to think highly of her. Looking back, she was pretty awful. She wouldn't have grown if she had not met her friends in Beacon. Most of what she learned from leadership came from Ruby. She just said what she felt and had her heart in the right place, and it doesn't seem to go much beyond that to be a good leader. Maria says, "You kids learn so early about stuff that took me years to figure out… I envy you."

And so, another normal day passed. The city was still booming with noise and work everywhere. Weiss already has the money to flee the nation and get a train straight to Vale, now she just has to prepare herself for a few days, and find a way to pass by security. But as they walked to the market together, as they would often do… shit finally started to go down.

Maria stops suddenly, and she starts to mumble. "Oh no… oh no no NO!…"

"What's wrong…? Maria?" Weiss asked.

"Weiss… rush back home, get your sword, and go to the east mines. Door number six." Maria said.

"What? Why?" Weiss asked.

"Listen, the battery from my goggles is going to end in thirty minutes, and it's going to take one hour to recharge. You have to go without me, it's urgent. Go now!" Maria said, making Weiss very confused, but she decided to obey. She went back to the apartment, grabbed her gear and left. Note that she still wears the same simple white dress with red flowers, and a red sunhat. She quickly arrived in front of the mine entrance, with its huge closed gate. It seemed like nothing was wrong. Why did Maria suddenly say that?

Weiss was not given time to think… She had company.

It was right behind her, she could feel a violent presence from behind.

"You can't imagine my shock… when I started hearing rumors from home, about a girl called Ruby White… It just sounded too stupid to be true, but it's actually you. The fact we haven't caught you yet is embarrassing," a familiar voice was speaking to Weiss, and quickly the camera reposition to show… Robin. Her arms were crossed and she was all geared up.

"… It wasn't me…" Weiss said.

"Then why did you run?" Robin asked.

"It was… a long night."

"Your sister was looking for you… She wanted to have a private talk. Don't worry, I already notified her. You can just sit tight and wait, or otherwise, you can give me a reason to use force." Robin said. Questions were racing in Weiss's mind. How did this happen? Why did Maria send her here? Winter is coming? and a lot others. But the easiest solution to it all was just to draw her sword and run from Robin through the rooftops.

However, here we see a very different Robin from the tournament. Not only is she stronger, but now she can fight to the best of her ability, while in her home turf. Weiss is incapable of running forever — she almost gets impaled by a dozen sound-speed bolts the second she turns her back. She fights Robin head on, and just like the first time, they are pretty balanced. Robin is now wise to her powers so the old tricks from the tournament fail in this situation. Even if Weiss were to win, Robin's backup eventually came. The rest of team PCFHR arrived one by one, and they helped in the battle to easily overwhelm Weiss with their different powers. First Harriet, then Fiona and Ciel. They never actually get the chance to seriously hurt her, because in the end… the last member arrives. Not against Weiss, but on her side. Penny arrives flying on her jet boots, and stops the fight by standing in between them.

"Penny, WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU THINKING?!" Harriet shouted.

"Please, everyone, why are we fighting?! We don't have to solve the situation this way! We're friends!" Penny said.

"Penny, this girl tried to kill her own father. You want to be friends with a murderer?!" Robin shouted.

"You're wrong! She's innocent! You have to believe her! If you can't, then believe me! Just this once!"

"Penny… I don't want to get you into trouble. Just help us restrain Weiss and get this over with. Don't make me have to fight you too."

Penny was completely against the wall. She didn't want to abandon Weiss but also didn't want to anger her team. In the end she didn't have to choose, because the catastrophe that Maria foresaw… finally happened. All the girls could feel something reverberating in the air.

...

Suddenly, they felt a quake. A tremor was running through the ground. The buzzing began. A fog horn rang in the entrance of the mines, telling everyone to run. It seemed like the quake came from the mines underneath the mountain, and so it started to crumble down. The huge metal entrance of gate number six was opened up, and workers started running out of the mines. They told the girls that the ceiling was about to collapse, and there were workers still stuck in there. Weiss and team PCFHR look at each other for a moment. Weiss says, "we have to get those people out of there!"

Everyone looked at Robin. She was the leader, and had to make a decision. And now, when lives are at stake, her personal beef can go fuck itself. She tells Penny, Harriet and Weiss to go inside and help everyone. The rest will stay here and make sure the path is clear. And so the girls ran into the mines at full speed. It was a long and dark tunnel, illuminated only by emergency red lights. After a while running, they arrive at the deeper mines.

What a sight it was.

The mine entrance revealed the way to a totally new city, hidden underground. There were brick buildings on the sides of the cavern for workers who couldn't leave, and a giant hole that spirals down to the depths of the underground. A white glow emanates from the bottom, probably from the raw Dust deposit. At least that's how it looked for a few minutes more, since it was soon to be buried. The girls saw the roof of the mine cracking, and debris started falling.

They were quick to grab innocent people and pull them away from danger. Weiss immediately used her Semblance to create a tree of ice from the ground to the ceiling, and that held the roof together for now. Apparently, the cause of the destruction was the main steel pillar of the mine mysteriously cracking in half and bending over. If the pillar collapses fully, it will be the end of this whole sector. The girls were forced to split up, as there were many different paths to the deeper levels. Penny and Harriet would later work together to fix the pillar. We continue following Weiss as she saves more and more people.

We also get a short scene of Ciel, Fiona and Robin using her high-tech tools and powers to create a structure that held the entrance, so then people could exit the mines. Ciel used her Semblance to replicate a sound warning, attracting people towards them. We could stretch these scenes of saving people way more than we should, just to showcase a bit of protagonism for everyone, but let me just get to the ending already.

Eventually Robin is met with a special someone outside. Winter has arrived.

Though this whole shit is happening, her eyes are of pure anger. She simply asks, "Where is she?" and so Robin points to the entrance.

Weiss managed to save each and every worker from the deeper levels, mostly using her Semblance in creative ways to either send people away faster or give them more time to run — like summoning ice Grimm to ride them out. In the end she was left alone and tired from overusing her Semblance. Heavy debris was falling around her. One was about to squash her, but just then Winter arrives, slashing the huge rock in half and saving her sister… for now.

Winter and Weiss look at each other in silence.

Even if the whole place is crumbling around them, Weiss felt like nothing could stop what happens next. Here we see Winter's Semblance for the very first time. She hits the ground with her sword, and suddenly a layer of ice spreads around the walls and ceiling of the cave, freezing everything in place and stopping the cave from collapsing. A cold hue immediately filled the area, and suddenly all the chaos turned into pure quiet peace. All noise had stopped.

"Sis…" Weiss said, looking down.

"He became a detestable man as the years went, but he is still our father. You still owe him respect. And as for our mother… As you know, she's been slowly losing herself since grandpa passed away, and now I feel like she'll never be the same. I've never seen her so ridden with grief and sadness before. Klein went sick with worry. Whitley has been locked in his room for days… Well, perhaps these things do not concern you anymore, do they?" Winter said.

"Winter… I don't want to fight you." Weiss said.

"And what if you have to, Weiss? Will you kill me as well?" Winter asked. There was a dense silence after that line, and so Winter continued, "Myrtnaster is the greatest relic of this family… You do not deserve it anymore, regardless of what our grandfather wanted. Give it to me… or I'll rip it out of you, one way or another."

Weiss refused.

And so they begin to fight, in this cave of ice. The strikes of their swords echoed and cracked the floor around them. It started off as a plain duel, just like it was in volume III, but this time Winter is going full power. She really either wants to kill Weiss or make her regret what she's done. And so after a while, we see Winter's Semblance in use again. She hits the ground with her sword, and so appears the gigantic glyph — quite like Weiss', but with a different pattern. It commands a huge area around her, and it moves along with her steps, until it eventually disappears. The cold hue suddenly becomes more dense, almost like a fog. The ground starts to steam.

Winter called her Semblance "Negative Zone", the power to reverse reality within this space that surrounds her. What it technically does is: when something moves or makes contact with surfaces, instead of generating heat, it generates cold. As Weiss moved, her body started freezing from the inside out. This power doesn't affect Winter, so she's free to continue her vicious attack. Apparently she planned to use this to defeat Qrow back then, but she didn't have the opportunity. With this power she can easily defeat Weiss, because every move the girl makes will make her slower, and eventually start losing control over her limbs. It was absurdly painful. After a hard battle, even at the top of her game, Weiss couldn't defeat Winter while she used her Semblance.

Weiss was on the ground, but she still wanted to survive.

She wanted to see her friends again.

Her desire to keep going reacted with her Semblance, as well as her imagination. Weiss's Aura was flaring up, and she started to subconsciously create something through a glyph, even though she couldn't move. Her conscience was dwindling in and out, and she was being showered with memories that she had long forgotten. Once upon a time she found herself in the same situation, where the younger Winter was bullying the small Weiss as they fought for a toy. Just then their grandfather came, and taught them a lesson that they could never forget. From then on, the two sister became best friends for several years.

The only thing Weiss wanted was a way to make peace with her sister. And so she made a sculpture… of Nikolas Schnee.

At the end of her life, Weiss was begging that her grandpa come rescue her, just like that time from the past. It was a childish desire, but once put in motion by her Semblance… it generated a completely new power. A huge amount of Weiss' Aura was flowing out of her. The body of ice was slowly rising from the magical glyph, making Winter back away. It was a tall man in armor, and long hair tied into a wolf tail. His body was made of pure blue ice. Once he was fully formed, he opened his eyes.

He seemed confused at first, looking around slowly. He spotted Myrtnaster on the ground, and moved to pick it up by instinct. It was a perfect sculpture of Nikolas, down to the last strand of hair. The mere sight of him walking was enough to shake Winter, but it got worse once he started talking. He looked at the situation with sadness in his shiny blue eyes. "I… I hoped I wouldn't be alive to see this day." Nikolas said.

"… Grandpa?" Winter said, destroying her guard completely.

"Yes, I think… However, I'm aware that I passed away long ago. This body is not mine. Weiss brought me back, hoping that you would listen to me." Nikolas said. Weiss had such a deep conception of him that he literally gained sentience as soon as he was summoned. He even had his badass Troy Baker voice again. He was looking at himself and quickly understood he was nothing but the memory that Weiss had of him, before he died. But even so, there was humanity in him. "You two… you two grew so much…"

"You're just… just an imitation then!" Winter replied, wielding her sword.

"I don't really know… Do you wish to find out?" Nikolas asked with a smile.

Winter then got angry at his mere existence, and rushed to attack him. Apparently his already-iced body makes him immune to her Semblance, so the fight is pure sword skill. And somehow, Nikolas's sculpture was able to match Winter. In her inner dialogue, she realizes that his summoned copy fought exactly like Nikolas did, down to the last minute aspects of his stance. After going back and forth for a while, Winter started to lose more and more of her grip to fight. She couldn't force herself to harm him anymore. Nikolas was able to disarm her, and send her saber flying away.

Winter fell to her knees. "Grandpa… is that really you?" She asks.

"Winter… And Weiss too… I know I don't have much left in me, so listen to my words, one final time…

You know I had quite a lot of adventures, didn't I? I told many of them to you. You two would listen closely, and play pretend about those stories together… and it always made me happy…. I realized that, regardless of all that glory, all the friends I made, and the battles that I fought… you two were the greatest achievements that I ever had in my life… that's what I always said… and that's what it will always be… so why? Why must you two destroy each other?… I didn't want you two to grow into soldiers, or heroes… all I wished is that… you continue being the same wonderful, sweet and kind girls that I knew…"

By that point Winter was crying heavily, looking down in shame. Nikolas continued, "Please Winter… I know I can trust you to do the right thing… I know there's still love in you… Please, my dear… you need to keep fighting… to keep it alive…

I love you… I love you two… good luck." Those were the last words of Nikolas.

Weiss Aura was slowly burning away, and now that it's fatally low, his body begins to vaporize into a cloud of steam. He said his last words with a smile, and Winter tried to reach him before he turned into bright blue smoke, but couldn't. She cried and yelled out, "GRANDPA!" one last time as he went. She stood there crying like a child, with tears flowing down her face. But as he disappeared, she looked ahead and realized… Weiss was still dying back there. Winter immediately undid her Semblance, and rushed by her side. Once turned off, the effects it caused instantly disappeared, and Weiss's body temperature returned to normal.

She woke up and saw Winter crying as she held her. "Winter… what's wrong…?"

She didn't answer, she just held that embrace for as long as she could.

For the first time, Winter Schnee shows emotion, and weakness.

In the end she finally says, "I'm sorry... Weiss... I'm so sorry..."

.

.

Let's cut to Whitley real quick.

He looked even more sleep-deprived than last time, as he searched and collected every minuscule sighting of the iron maiden in each of the cameras in Atlas city. She followed Weiss through the rooftops it seems. He still needed some concrete proof that she was the one… until it came. Klein barged into his room and said, "young master, we have something!"

He sent him a video that he found from a local couple who was out on the streets last week. They heard sounds coming from an alleyway, and when they went to check, they saw a fight happening in the alleyway. They filmed just the end of it, but it was clearly Weiss fighting that Iron Maiden again, before running away.

Whitley began to thoroughly analyze the footage, until he saw that the Iron maiden's pike already had blood in it before the fight began. And after seeing the footage in slow motion, he manages to witness a single drop of blood pour out of that pike as she swings at Weiss. It got stuck to the wall of the alleyway. That was it. He ran out of his room with Klein and drove downtown. If that drop of blood matches with his father's blood type… they found the killer.

"But… where is she now, anyway?!" Klein asked.

.

.

And so… as Winter hugged Weiss on the ground, they started hearing heavy metal steps echoing in the ice cave. The two turn around… and so the Iron Maiden appears again — as cold, ominous and menacing as she always has been. Just then we cut to Weiss's face, and she has inner realization. The mine started collapsing because the steel support pillar was cracked, and it could only be done by someone stupidly strong. She asked, "No… no way… did you… did you do all this… Just to get me?!"

The iron Maiden simply walked forward and repeated the same ominous line. "no witnesses…"

And so without talking at all, she rushes to attack the sisters. Winter had dropped her sword, but as she tried to grab it… it flew away from her hand, and started levitating in the air. It came to Iron Maiden's side. She had no idea what was happening, but she had to fight back somehow. Winter tried activating her Semblance, but it didn't work on the Iron Maiden. She stood away from the obvious area of effect (the big glyph circle), and so Winter's own saber started to attack her, flying on its own.

Winter was good at dodging it, but couldn't find any way to fight back. Suddenly, Myrtnaster also started flying in the air, and the fight just got ugly for Winter. She got slashed dozens of times, and then tossed to the side. Now it was Weiss's turn. She tried to use a summoned ice sword again, but this time the iron maiden was using her full power. She could not only control the swords… but also any kind of metal that was lying around in the cave. Pickaxes and other excavating tools busted through the ice layer, and were tossed at Weiss in great speed, damaging her heavily. Weiss was also severely wounded and hurt from all the previous battles, so she couldn't do much before her ice sword broke, and she was tossed to the ground. The iron maiden was about to impale Weiss with the two swords at the same time.

But then, at last possible second… Winter summoned all of her strength to jump in front of the attack.

She held the edge of her saber with her hands, and used her stomach to stop Myrtnaster from hitting Weiss.

The rapier went through her torso. Her face was overcome with anger, but with that deadly wound, she quickly lost conscience. The Iron maiden removed the blade, and let her fall back towards her sister. Winter was now lying on Weiss' knees — blood spilling out of her mouth and stomach. Weiss was in absolute shock and couldn't think about what to do, nor had the strength to do anything. She was too tired, no Aura left, and no hope of saving the two of them. The last thing she could do was apologize to Winter.

…

But surprises are never ending in this series.

Suddenly, at the last possible moment, a figure appears beside the iron maiden, too fast for her to realize. She felt it, but before she could turn around, a cane hooked itself around her neck, and she was suddenly slammed against the ground by the pulling force — cracking the ice, shaking the walls and making the ceiling crumble again.

It was… Maria?!

She was dressing differently than usual. The long robes that she used, that once made her look purposefully like an old ass witch, now turned into a tight blue dress that shows perfectly how curvaceous and fit she is despite her age. Her hood was pulled back, and so we could see her face better than ever. Shoulder-length grizzled hair, tanned dark skin, striking horizontal scar across the eyes, and no pupils. She looked taller now that she stopped faking a hunch. She truly was no normal lady.

Weiss can see a bright blue aura behind her. She was a Huntress!

The Iron Maiden quickly got up and realized she had another someone to kill. Weiss instantly noticed that Maria was not using her goggles. She was fighting blind. Maria then threw away her smashed wooden cane, and from her back she drew two small scythes — looking like refined handmade craft. Weiss told her to watch out, since the enemy could control stuff made out of metal. But upon further inspection… the scythes were clearly made out of dark stone; obsidian.

The maiden couldn't control anything in Maria — her clothes, bag and weapons were free of any durable metal. The only thing to do was to kill her the usual way, but… Maria was a monster. Insane speed, absurd reflexes, and some kind of ability that allowed her to perfectly predict all of the Iron Maiden's tricks perfectly. She literally had some kind of god mode despite being blind. Maria said, "You lack free will… you can't change the outcome of this fight."

The battle is quick and satisfying as fuck — Maria dominates through and through. The ice formed by Winter's powers was quickly disappearing. The rooftop started collapsing again. Maria knew she had to finish this quickly in order to take Weiss and Winter to a safe zone, so she pulled the last trick she had to make this iron maiden back away. She attacked as the android was stunned, and aimed to slice her head. It was like a flash, and Maria had succeeded.

The helmet of the Iron maiden was sliced in half, and it fell to the floor in two pieces.

Her head is out of frame. Short red hair comes undone as her helmet falls.

It was not a robot all along… It was an actual girl. The maiden instantly covers her face with her hands. A single soulless green eye peers in between her fingers. "Retreat…" she says, and so she jumps away at great speed and disappears into the cave. The wall collapses and falls behind her, hiding her escape. At that moment Maria pulled back her goggles from her bag, she grabbed Weiss and Winter, and ran even deeper into the cave. "Maria, WAIT! We need to go the other way!"

She ended up standing in a very specific place, saying, "it's here."

And so the ceiling of stone of the mines started to completely collapse around them. Weiss closed her eyes, expecting to die… but it wasn't the case. The rocks fell in such a way that they formed two support pillars, which held another falling stone that acted as a rooftop right above them. The rest of the ceiling collapsed in small pieces, but the three were perfectly safe inside this small opening created by pure random fate.

...

Weiss opened her eyes, and saw that she was indeed okay.

"I was afraid that I had miscalculated. I'm a bit rusty." Maria said.

Maria reached inside her bag and then cracked a blue glow stick, giving them some light. Weiss was trying to wake up Winter as she cried, but then Maria drew an Atlas medic kit, and she was able to stop Winter's bleeding. Thankfully it didn't seem like it damaged her vital organs that much. All Maria had to do was put some blue goo around the stabs and slashes with some stiches, and it worked on its own. It saved Winter's life.

"Don't worry. She will make it." Maria said.

"How… how did you know all of this would happen?" Weiss asked, teary eyed.

"Maybe I should do a reintroduction. My real name is Maria Calavera, I'm a retired Huntress, and… my Semblance is Future Vision."

Apparently Maria didn't fight blind. She spent all that time at home memorizing exactly what would happen, and thus she was able to craft the perfect timeline where everyone lived. If she had fought with her goggles on, the maiden would destroy them in pretty much any timeline, so she had to improvise the ending a bit. Of course, if Weiss hadn't surpassed her own limits and fought to the end, she would be dead and there was nothing Maria could do. She should be proud of herself.

"Wait… how are we going to get out of here?" Weiss asked.

"Just wait. We haven't run out of friends yet… In the meantime, I think there's something you should know." Maria said. She then pulled one last thing from her bag. It was her small radio. She extended the antenna and turned it on. The connection was shit, but they could still barely hear the news channel.

"[…] more on that at eight. Breaking News: the recent murder attempt scandal involving council member and millionaire, Jacques Schnee, has received an update today due to new findings. Weiss Schnee, Jacques own daughter, has been officially cleared from suspicion, as her younger brother provided clear evidence that negates her involvement. The new real perpetrator has been identified and the authorities are currently investigating. […]" The radio continued going but the important part was done.

Weiss' face was overcome with emotion and relief. "Whitley… thank you…"

"I should've believed you…" Winter speaks, suddenly waking up. "I'm sorry…"

"Winter!"

"Grandpa was right… on giving the sword to you… the things I said, and the things I did to you, are inexcusable… if someone deserves to carry on his legacy, it's-"

"WINTER!… please, just stop… I'm tired of thinking about that, every day… I don't want this stupid crap to weigh us down anymore… honor, legacy… whatever!… I don't care about who keeps the sword, or who's right or wrong… I just want my older sister back!" Weiss said. The two hugged tightly and fondly.

Soon, they started hearing a sound. "There it is." Maria said.

The space around them begins to shake, until eventually a hole is opened. Penny appears, lifting the rocks out of the way so the other could leave. "Weiss! Boss! Random old lady! You're okay!" she said. Weiss gave her Winter to carry and so everyone crawled out of there. The rest of team PCFHR had successfully repaired the main support pillar by that point, using their powers along big welding tools. They saved the day, together.

They exited the mines and found a crowd silently waiting outside. Once Weiss saw the light and stepped out, suddenly everyone erupted into cheers. All the people she saved were patiently waiting for her to return safely as well. Robin then approached Weiss, and the two kept staring at each other. "I was wrong about you… and that's good, for once… This is my city. My family. I know it didn't treat you well. I didn't treat you well, either. But still, you helped us… I will never forget this, Weiss." Robin said, bowing to her.

With people cheering all around them, the scene ends.

.

.

Everything was solved in the end. We slowly fade back to see Weiss, alone on her hospital bed, probably a day or so later. She's just sitting there with a smile, knowing she's free from all her weights and false charges. However, she had just one last mile to cross. Suddenly she hears a knocking, and sees Whitley enters through the door with Klein. The butler just stands quietly with a smile as he looks at Weiss. Whitley slowly makes his way to her bed with hands behind his back. He looked awfully tired, just like her.

The boy genius was still trying to play the cold and calculating act. "You look okay. That's great. A part of me still believed you wouldn't be able to pull through… I seemed to have forgotten that you spent a whole year training in Vale. You became much stronger than I-"

Suddenly Weiss jumps out of the bed and pulls him in for a hug. He wasn't expecting that at all — it's been years since their last embrace. She was so strong that she could pick him up and swing him around like a doll. Weiss began to cry and say, "I can't… I simply can't thank you enough, Whitley… I abandoned you… I left you alone in that horrible house… I don't deserve to even call myself your older sister… but you still helped me... Thank you!"

Whitley eventually decided to hug her back. Weiss continued, "I regret all that I said that night… I shouldn't have left you… You never did anything against me, but I hated you too… I was such an idiot!"

"I know… I knew you were… That's why I never hated you back… even if I tried… It was lonely without you… I'm glad you're okay, sis." Whitley said.

She let go of him and he sat on her bed. Whitley explains that Winter was okay, and she should be leaving the bed in a day or two. Huntsmen recover surprisingly quickly. The law won't be after her anymore, but… their father still kicked Weiss out of home. She doesn't really mind — it's not like she planned to stay forever anyway. The search for the true assassin has begun, but they have no leads yet. Weiss is fearful that Whitley might become a target, but he is not worried. The Iron Maiden could've killed him any day for the past week, but didn't — her targets are precise and specific. He hopes to catch her still, and the one who's clearly calling the shots for her. But, Just for safe measure, he and Klein will lay low for a while.

"What do you plan on doing, Weiss?" He asks.

"I'm going back… to my friends."

"I knew you would say that… here!" Whitley then picked something out of his pocket, and gave it to her. It was her scroll phone. She left it in the mansion since this whole thing started. "Your friends back home managed to fix the communication's tower while you were away… Some Ruby sent you a message."

Weiss proceeded to watch Ruby's farewell message, where she detailed going after that woman who did this to their home, promising to get revenge. Weiss then has flashbacks of their battle against Cinder atop Ozpin's tower. She knew this wouldn't end well — Ruby will die if she fights that woman alone. Weiss immediately opens her Huntsmen app, and uses a special feature to track down the phones of her teammates. Yang was disconnected in Vale City long ago, Blake's signal was reaching Vale City from the sea… and Ruby was heading into the forbidden North. The place where they were told never to go alone.

"That dolt... I need to go, Whitley. I don't have much time." Weiss said.

"I know… I have one last gift for you." Whitley said. He hands her an ignition key. "I checked the papers and… that jet that father bought you for your 15th birthday is actually in your name, so it is yours. I left it parked on the city military base. It will take you wherever in a flash. Just promise me you will come back!"

"You know I will." She said, hugging him again, and getting off the bed.

As she left, Klein offered her Myrtnaster, and a backpack with clothes and supplies. "Good luck, my dear. I'll be praying for you." Klein said, and so she gave him a hug too.

...

As she walked down the stairs and was about to exit the hospital, she met Maria again. She was standing by the stairs and leaning against the wall as if she knew… actually, she did know Weiss would leave now, didn't she? It's gonna take a while for Weiss to internalize that she's actually an oracle.

Weiss asks, "Is there a way I could ever repay you?"

"Get better at cooking, maybe. Aside from that, I'll be fine, and so will you."

"… will my friends be okay?" Weiss asks. "What can you see from my future?"

"I don't know. Once I lost my sight, I lost a great deal of my power. Once the battery on these damn goggles ends, my future turns into endless darkness… I'm no better than an alleyway fortune teller." Maria said.

Weiss looked down for a while before saying, "Months ago… we were being told history at Beacon, and… we were talking about the greatest, strongest team of the century. Team MOHL… Leonardo Lionheart, Hazel Reiner, Ozpin Kurtin, my professor, and… Maria Calavera, their leader… But after they disbanded, you went missing… Why?"

Maria looked down with a sad face. "That day, when I lost my eyes… I was sad… I was… afraid. I couldn't bear to be responsible for anyone anymore… I failed them, my best friends... We disbanded because I was weak… And ever since then, I only looked after myself… Listen to me, Weiss… Ruby… Yang… Blake… I know they are important to you. And now, they are as much family to you as it gets. Please… never forget that. Don't make the same mistake as I did." Maria finished.

Weiss bowed to her. "I will not, I promise... Thank you… for everything."

"Don't sweat it. Nikolas… he did the same for me." Maria said, and so Weiss went to leave. "And hey… if you ever need some tips, make sure to bring five Lien, okay?"

Weiss smiled and ran away, waving Maria goodbye. She bust through the doors with a lot of determination in her face. She took a peek at her bag and saw a really nice suit just waiting for her to put it on, what excited her even more. At long last, she can finally be a warrior again. People watched as the strange girl with a sword ran through the walkway, and eventually jumped high into the rooftops of the buildings. She had to be fast.

"Ruby… I'm coming!" She said, and so, Weiss's story is officially over.

.

.

.

After the crisis at the mines had ended… someone made their escape.

There was the sound of rumbling in a random spot of the mountain. It was shaking, and soon we found out why. A drill burst through the surface of stone, showing a hole that went incredibly deep. The drill was at breaking point, and the red tip implies it was overused. Right after the drill stops, we see who was controlling it. It wasn't powered by anything, it was just being levitated.

It was the iron maiden again, without her helmet.

She crafted a way out of the mines by mind controlling the metal drill. She arrived at the high points of the Atlisian mountain range, and she could see the city of Mantle clearly down below. The camera slowly crawls up her fully armored body, until we eventually see her face.

Pyrrha Nikos.

Her bright red hair was cut short, and her green eyes were completely soulless. She doesn't blink. She doesn't react to pain or the cold.

She just stares on, until finally admitting: "Mission… failed…"

Cut to black.

Commentary (spoilers): I'm so done with this. Thank god I changed my mind before the end. Originally, Maria would only appear at the very end to save Weiss randomly and then disappear as a recurring badass character, and the person who would take Weiss in would just be an abusive old man related to Robin. Instead I gave that role to Maria, and simply disguised her as a normal old lady without powers in the beginning of this section, and forgo the mysterious savior shit. Personality wise, she's serious and monotone due to her early depression and seclusion, but sometimes we can feel and see her original sarcastic personality shine through dialogue. I'm satisfied with this Maria. When she actually becomes central to the plot, we won't need to introduce her completely. The true best part of this section is seeing Weiss go through this reverse Snow White story; coming out of luxury and being thrown into a situation in which she is obligated to be humble. It's a clear and obvious nod to her original inspiration story; she being the happy girl just trying to get by, and Maria being the "evil witch" that at first seems to be tricking her.

I just loved this whole section, because it is the ultimate conclusion of Weiss's arc about becoming a true hero. Not moved by honor or the desire to fulfill a legacy, but finally understanding the deeper meaning of her grandfather's words, and becoming a good woman out of her own desire to be good. It's amazing. The only part in which I might have stretched things a bit is with the summoning of Ice Nikolas. If that comes out as too OP or too random, we might have to change it to something else… but it's simply too badass and story relevant to shrug off. The structure of the story is neat, but some minor events need polishing and some dialogue needs to be better adapted. I would include more Penny, since more Penny = more money. None of team PCFHR deserve a redesign YET, and they don't develop at all (other than Robin), so they are again just here to be here. At long last we can see that the Iron Maiden was in fact… Pyrrha. DUH DUH DUH. Yeah, it was obvious. Okay I'm talking too much. Let's go to the final story and then move to the ending of the volume.

.

.

.

And lastly… we have to end it with Blake.

This part might actually be really quick, since it's quite like the original. Her story starts again on the same night we stopped. Blake returned to her room with Sun after the encounter in the jungle. He was moaning and gasping painfully every time she put some ointment in his back and stitching him up — that whip strike from Ilia did some heavy damage. Naturally Sun demands an explanation, and so Blake tells the basics.

Ilia was her childhood friend. They were happy, but then Ilia's parents went to the continent in some kind of trip to visit Haven relatives, and never came back — they were killed by humans. Ilia went mad with grief, and decided to join the White Fang with the goal of taking revenge on humanity. Blake, being her impressionable friend, was easily convinced to join along. They have seen each other very few times for the last five years — even though they were both elite members, Ilia was sent on missions in Haven while Blake was taken as a pupil to Adam in Vale. Blake had no idea she changed so much. She never expected Ilia to turn her back and attack her, and now she's not so sure about what to do. And if Ilia is here, she obviously won't be alone.

However, now Blake just had to worry about Sun. He kept jumping around the bad, making the bed squeak.

"Ugh!" Sun recoiled and moaned in pain. "Is this your first time doing this?"

"Stay calm. I'm trying to be gentle. It's been a while since I last tried." Blake said.

"Is that really going to work? I'm feeling something weird coming out…" Sun said.

"Trust me, you'll start feeling good soon enough-" Blake was interrupted.

Suddenly the door bursts open, and is sent flying by a powerful force. The two turn around in shock to see Ghira stepping into the room. He looked at them with vicious eyes and a snarl, but they were just sitting in the bed while she tended to his wounded back. "Oh- this what you were doing." he says, as his demeanor completely changes in a second.

Suddenly the ceiling screen starts to crack and break. Kali suddenly drops from up there and lands on her face. She was spying, but quickly got up and acted like nothing was wrong. "Oh my, how did I get in here, huh? I was just searching for- HAAAAH! (gasp) Sun! What happened to you?!"

Blake proceeded to explain that they were attacked by White Fang, and that they are currently hidden in the town. Blake begs that her father and mother find refuge somewhere, because it's more than obvious that they will try to claim power in a barbaric way. Ghira is not afraid for himself, but he fears Kali and Blake will be hurt. He wanted them both in the safe room of the house. That would be the right call… if it wasn't for what happens next. The three cat people instantly hear a scream with their great hearing. They go to Blake's window, and look down into the city. It's all dark, except for the big house at the very center. It was one bright spot in the dormant town.

The small building that used to be the White Fang's base of Menagerie… It was set on fire.

Blake realized all the human refugees were in there, and so she grabbed her sword and jumped in without a second thought. Sun was wounded and Kali stopped him from following.

What follows is the third best action scene of this volume. Blake just runs straight at the building on fire through the rooftops. Suddenly two guys in robes from the White Fang jump in and try to stop her, but she easily defeats the two and doesn't even stop to ask any questions. She arrives and sees the other hooded soldiers that set the building ablaze, shutting the doors to trap all humans inside the fire. She didn't had much time, so she jumped in to confront them.

What follows is a wordless, badass fight sequence in which Blake just beats the fuck out of fifteen White Fang members on her own, all are fighting together. The bright flames of the house on fire make her shadow grow bigger, and at this point her "Shadow Twin" Semblance is strong to the point she can summon a dark clone of herself to fight alongside her. Literally every shadow related ability in anime, Blake has it. Eventually she defeats all of them and enters the burning building. Thankfully she's not alone — her comrades from the Guard also arrive and start carrying the humans out of the fire. The White Fang members are so nettled that they jump into the house in flames to continue fighting Blake, and she kicks their ass again. Thanks to her efforts all humans escape the flames — injured but safe. They watch the building burn in relief, and see all the White Fang Members lying unconscious… but the crisis wasn't over.

This was a distraction. Blake looked back, and saw that the real fight was happening in her house.

It suddenly caught on fire as well after a noticeable explosion. She had to run.

…

Before following Blake to the city, Ghira had to make sure Kali was safe, since he already predicts they will try to kidnap her in order to blackmail him. He easily picks her up and carries her along to their panic room of the first floor. She smacks his shoulder to let her go, but can't do a thing to the man mountain. "I'm sorry darling, but I'm not risking you."

And so he locks her in a secret room behind a closet.

As he goes out into his huge living room, Ghira is confronted by the real bulk of the White Fang members who invaded the island. They watch him from the rafters and the corners, holding weapons and preparing to strike. Ghira tries to monologue one last time about the mistake of their ways. If they plan to retaliate against humanity, they will only ruin the image of Faunus more and more, and thus increase segregation and disputes. They are beginning a war that their people can't win, but Ghira doesn't expect them to understand that. Either they are too deep into this, or they are just looking after themselves.

"Very well then…" Ghira says, taking off his purple coat and showing the absolute palace of muscle he has.

It doesn't come as a surprise that he can fight, considering how much of a threat Sun considered him to be. He with his bare hands (and claws) easily defeats all of his attackers, no matter how many weapons they use. This fight sequence might as well be paired right next to Blake's. Ghira won, but he still had two people to worry about. Corsac and Fennec show up. Here they have no weapons, and use only martial arts with their Semblances; "Fire Breath" and "Huff and Puff" — both pretty self explanatory. They combo together to create a devastating blast of flames that badly hurts Ghira and sets the house on fire. It seemed that it would be an easy win for them, but then Sun shows up. Even with his back slashed open, he still has guts to spare.

"HMPH! You think you can fight like that? Don't get in my way, kid!" Ghira said.

"Don't mess with me, old man… I'm going to be the strongest Huntsman in Haven someday… I won't lose to these clowns!" Sun responded.

At that moment, for the first time, Ghira and Sun smiled at each other — finally acknowledging a mutual respect. And so begins a cool fight sequence between the four, and I have no input. All I know is that the fight in the original volume 4 is actually cool, so we can keep it that way — just increase everyone's power level a lot, and fasten that pace. It seems like Sun, even wounded, is still troublesome in combat. He easily defeats Fennec, while Ghira destroys Corsac in brute strength. Ghira's Semblance is "Beastful" — his ability is to quickly and instantly grow and reduce the proportions of his body. He can make his muscles bigger and smaller, he can make himself shorter or even taller, but most commonly he uses his Semblance to grow his nails into sharp daggers, and also grow hair out of his arms and chest to cushion attacks or block projectiles with his thick fur. In his "ultimate'' mode, he essentially turns into the Beast from Disney, with fur covering every part of him, giving the appearance of werepanther with yellow eyes.

They fight hard but unfortunately they can't win, since there's a third person in the room that they didn't see before. Ilia suddenly comes out of camouflage, and with her whip she manages to lock both Ghira and Sun by their throats and start to choke them out while Corsac and Fennec continue to attack.

They would've died like that, but Blake arrived in the nick of time.

She tackles Ilia at high speed — looking like a pounce to catch prey. She was so fast that the two broke through the wall of the house and arrived outside. Behind the chieftain's house was the jungle, and naturally Ilia ran there to fight Blake. It was dark, and so the two could fight to the best of their abilities. Blake said, "Ilia, stop! I don't want to fight you!"

Ilia didn't give her the choice to fight or not, she just attacked. Her whip could extend a lot, and her camouflage makes it hard even for Blake with night vision to spot her. Her whip was bladed, so she could create a lash that cut through several trees in one go. Blake was being attacked continuously, tattering her clothes and getting slashed deeply even as she blocked. Eventually she wises up, and uses her shadow clone as a bait to trick Ilia, and so she is able to get her whip stuck. Blake quickly grabs it and uses all her strength to pull, dragging Ilia out of hiding and cutting her weapon in half.

"Ilia, listen to me…" Blake was saying.

"SHUT UP!" Ilia replied.

She pressed a button at the handle, and so her whip suddenly became stiff and turned into a scaled sword, and she continued fighting Blake head on. Here Ilia finally shows her Semblance, "Sticky" — It makes it so that Ilia can permanently glue herself to stuff by touching it with any part of her body. She can also glue two objects together, and she uses this skill to constantly trap Blake against trees and the ground — forcing her to take off her shoes and other clothes to free herself. As they continued their sword match Blake was saying; "Ilia, you're not thinking! Why won't you stop?! I'm not your enemy!"

"My mom and dad said the same thing! — don't worry, Ilia! we have to trust humans, Ilia! — and now look at them! THEY ARE DEAD! Is that what you want?! YOU WANT TO DIE JUST LIKE THEY DID? What happened to you?! WHAT HAVE THEY DONE TO YOU?!" Ilia asked.

"They loved me…" Blake replied, and seemed to have shocked Ilia a bit. "In the academy I met people… Humans that were different from what we saw. Different from what they told us. They respected me. They called me their friend, no matter how much I put them through… It's because of them… that I decided to believe in hope." Blake said.

"Lies! LIES! LIES!" Ilia said, continuing her savage attack.

Blake could easily kill her at several points, but she refused no matter how much damage she was enduring. The fight eventually takes them back near the house, and they keep fighting while it burns behind them in a really awesome visual. By then Ilia was crying and being more erratic than ever, so Blake was able to easily stop the fight by disarming her, mounting over her body as she fell back.

"What's the point?" Blake said, beginning to tear up as she held her blade to Ilia's neck. "Can't you see what you're doing?!… You think the world will be a better place by burning people alive?… You think killing MY parents is going to bring yours back?!… Ilia, I need you to think… because if you don't… you're just another monster… like the Grimm… and I'll have to take you down… please don't make me do this… please!"

Ilia closed her eyes and started to cry profusely. "I don't want to think… I can't… I don't want to be wrong, Bee… because if I am… What the hell has all this been for?!… Have I spent the last five years… doing nothing?!… What would mom and dad say?!… I don't want… all the things I did… to be for nothing!"

Memories of horrible things started to flash on Ilia's mind. Executions, people whose deaths she witnessed, innocents who she allowed to suffer and die. She admits to having felt remorse, ever since the very first time, but she ignored it. In her head, this is the only way she could change the world. The only way she could make sure that what happened to her doesn't happen to any other Faunus child. But now, Blake made her realize that… she's no different than the people who killed her parents. All she did was spread more pain and misery to the world. Now, being forced to confront her actions, the girl just lies on her back and cries. Blake, teary eyed, just stands up and watches her sobbing.

"What… what the hell do I do now?" Ilia asked.

This question rings for Ilia the same way it rings for Blake. Being asked that, memories of her friends flash before her eyes. In the end Blake gathers all her courage, and ultimately sets her mind on what her own destiny should be. "We can't run away… we can't just hide… the only thing we can do… is make amends."

She kept staring at Ilia until she realized that her mansion just collapsed behind them, and jumped off to see if her family was okay.

…

Sun and Ghira continue fighting Corsac and Fennec, and the entire main hall is on fire. The rooftop was collapsing. Ghira was forced to keep the place together by holding the main pillar, and Corsac used this opportunity to strike him from behind. Sun furiously fought him off, and suddenly he was fighting a two on one to save their lives. He was running out of energy and time, and realized the opportunity he was just presented with. "You guys are strong… And strong people… are the perfect excuse to put something to the test!" Sun said.

Sun turned his staff into nunchuck mode, but something was clearly different. All of them had triggers, and small holes. He said that master Corazan helped him craft this for the tournament. He got really inspired by guns once he visited Beacon for the first time, and so he made this. It was the dumbest thing Sun could ever hope to design, but his teacher helped him make them anyway. He calls it… Gunchucks. And so, we receive the very first gunchuck fight of the series. I know I blew up the money for the Qrow versus Tyrian fight, but this moment is truly special — it needs to be cool, fluid and well made above the average. The gunchucks work in an absolutely idiotic way, but that's their greatest strength. They seem to fire randomly, either while spinning or when making contact, and so there's literally no way to block them or dodge at close range. A completely unpredictable fighting style, even for the one wielding the weapon. Bullets packed a punch, but couldn't kill Corsac and Fennec — it was simply an asswhooping that sent them flying back.

He managed to put the two on the ground, but they quickly got up again. Fennec by that point was raging really hard, being a silver-tongue devil but having a short fuse. He started ranting about how it's Ghira's fault that the White Fang didn't take over yet. If he wasn't a weak leader back in the day, they could've already destroyed their enemies and taken over what's rightfully theirs. As he shouted, he started to spit more and more fire, trying to burn down Sun and Ghira. The four continued fighting, and one cute thing happens. Kali found a way out of the panic room, grabbed a gun, and shot Corsac in the face to protect Ghira's back. She said, "woah, this is easier than I thought…"

The obvious problem right now was the mansion, which doomed to fall with the flames. What marked the end was the falling rooftop. A huge, heavy piece fell on top of Fennec out of pure karma. Ghira realized they had to go, so he grabbed Sun and Kali and crashed through the wall.

"Quick, Corsac… get me out of here!" Fennec said.

Corsac had an absolutely cold stare. "The mission failed, Fennec. Someone has to take the bullet… I hope I can find a better partner. You were too weak." Corsac, jumping out and leaving Fennec behind to die. Fennec watched in shock as the entire house collapsed on top of him, caused by flames of his making. He screamed to the very end.

...

Kali, Ghira and Sun watched the house collapse from the outside, while Corsac gathered his men and jumped off into the night. He didn't find Ilia, so he expected her to have been killed as well. Corsac ordered them all to return to the boat, and leave the island immediately. Menagerie is no longer their ally. Blake soon arrived to find her family wounded, but alive. They can all sit down and watch the flames in peace as they hug each other in relief. The battle was over.

"Never liked it anyway." Ghira said. "Too big for such a small family we had."

"Huh… What do you say about getting some grandkids, old man?" Sun said.

Ghira grabbed his throat. "DO YOU WANT ME TO THROW YOU IN THERE!?"

"That wouldn't be bad." Kali said.

"MOM!" Blake shouted.

From afar, Ilia watched the reunion with sad tears in her eyes.

She slowly backs away, changing the color of her skin, disappearing into view.

.

.

Ghira didn't wait at all. he reunited all the people of Menagerie, refugee humans and Faunus alike, to explain all of the crimes committed by the White Fang. It's a nice and wise speech that doesn't instigate hatred towards them, but the simple desire be better. The day where Faunus and humans can coexist is already at their doorstep, and it has been there for a long, long time. All they needed was the optimism and the hope to see it. And he was right — during this month, some of the refugee girls met Faunus men who they fell in love with. The human children and the Faunus children played together as if nothing was wrong. The brighter future marches on, but they will never see it as long as they keep looking to the evils of the cruel past.

With that awesome speech done, the crowd soon understands again why he's the boss, and they erupt into cheering.

...

The following days, everything returned to normal. The chieftain's mansion was burned down, so naturally Ghira and Kali started building a new one right away — a smaller one this time. Now that we revealed Ghira's Semblance, we can finally show him changing to his normal form when he is tired — something he only does before sleeping. Turns out he's not a giant normally, and looks considerably younger without his beard forcibly grown long by magic. He's actually shorter than Kali in his normal form. Sun is helping him rebuild, and through their interaction we can understand that they finally accepted each other's company… But Ghira swears he will never marry Blake, and Sun insists that he will, and so they tussle each other again. Kali thinks about the past, realizing how similar Sun is compared to Ghira in his younger days.

Later, Sun found Blake by the beach shore, and they stared at the waves and sunset together.

"So… are you excited to see your new house?!" Sun asked.

"I won't be here to see it." Blake said. "I've made up my mind… I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Leaving? To where?"

"My friends… I left them, and I shouldn't have. Even if they hate me, even if I die, I have to make up for my mistakes. I can't hide here forever." Blake said. "If only I knew what they were going through…"

"Ha!" Sun suddenly sparked up. "I knew it! I knew it! I knew you would say that eventually! Man, I'm so smart!" He started to look for something in his pockets and eventually found it.

He handed Blake… the scroll she tossed off the ship, all those weeks ago. "My phone… but… how?"

"I saw you tossing it out of the ship and I thought, "what are you doing, don't do that you moron!" so I jumped and caught it before it sank! No need to thank me!" Sun said, giving it to her. She turned it on, and the first thing she saw was Ruby's last message — the same Weiss saw. She then did the same thing, searching her teammates by the tracker signal, and saw that Ruby was going to the Forbidden North. Blake felt dread like never before. "I need to help her."

…

That night, Blake explained to her parents what she was about to do. She apologizes, because even if she's doing the right thing… she fears there will be consequences, and maybe she won't come back to see them anytime soon. Ghira and Kali look at each other, and so Ghira said, "I know I can't get you out of trouble. I never could… We can't help but be worried for your safety, but at the same time… We're glad that you're finally carving your own path, darling… You can go ahead, and go knowing that what you're doing is right… and we could not be more proud."

The family embraces in a hug and cries once more, closing it up this story perfectly.

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.

We cut to the next morning. Blake was prepared, she was armed, and she had a clear and sharp goal in mind. Her father was able to provide her with a motor jet ski, that should allow her to arrive at the docks of Vale in just a few hours. Her parents, the other Guards of Menagerie, and a few humans and Faunus were there to watch her depart, and wish good luck. Sun walked her to the pier as they talked.

"So you won't be coming along?" Blake asked.

"Nah… I think you're finally good to go on your own. I have never seen you stronger than this – what good will I do?" Sun said.

"I see… will you go back to Haven then?"

"That's about it. The communication's tower of Vale was lifted, and apparently they managed to fix enough of the city already for the refugees to return. I guess I'll fetch a ride with them and make sure they arrive safely!"

They stopped walking, and her jet ski was just waiting beside her. Blake looked at his face, right into his eyes, weirding him out. She says, "I fear I won't be able to repay all the kindness you have shown me… We might never meet again."

"Don't say that! I'm sure you'll be fine! And don't sweat it, I'm a good guy who doesn't expect rewards, so don't tempt me, okay?" Sun said.

Blake smiled.

She gave a step closer, grabbed Sun by his collar and pulled him in for a quick peck on his lips.

It completely paralyzed him — being kissed for the first time by the woman of his dreams. We cut to the people watching. The ones at the back cheered, Ghira had his jaw wide open in both rage and disbelief, and Kali held her hands close to her heart as she leaned her head with a smile. Cut back to Sun and he is still completely stiff, both ways.

"I'll see you around, Sun Wukong… and no… no one will believe you."

Blake immediately jumped on the jet ski, and drove off into the horizon. Epic music is kicking in, and Blake stares right at the sunrise.

"You three… I will not let things end like that… Ruby, Yang, Weiss… wait for me!"

...

And from far away… in a little tree house by the jungle…

Ilia watches Blake go through her scope… and smiles.

And so, Blake's story concludes.

Commentary (spoilers): Yeah I have very little to change about this, and because of that it was quicker than Weiss's story for instance. The few changes I made are still just to fix pacing and give a better flow and encounter to the final battle. Love how Blake is the only one to win her final battle, but by far she had to deal with the weakest enemies. I'm honestly so fucking distraught we won't see more of this place and these characters like Ghira and Kali. They get just one appearance, a minor role, or maybe a minisode about how they are doing. I hope Kali fans enjoyed their lot. Compared to the battle of the Branwen tribe, and the battle at the mines of Mantle, this one has the potential to be equally as dramatic and cool. Ilia is a nice villain; originally I thought about making this take place a few days after their encounter, but I think making it happen right away allowed me to take advantage of Ilia's poor emotional state and force her to fight. If she was given more time to think, her insistence would make her seem like a careless monster. She will come back for one whole volume and the finale, and while that, we can see her own lonely journey in a small series of minisodes that we will release when the time is right. I don't actually have much to talk about writing wise, because again, I didn't write most of this. If anything I just made it more simple and updated it to the canon of the remake.

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Now it's time for the finale.

Ruby, Qrow and Yang are returning home to Vale. Weiss is flying a ship towards them, and Blake is also on her way, all at the same time. So now the question becomes… How do I force a cliffhanger finale? Remember those two intermissions about Cinder and the relic? Let's go back to that.

After the little Grimm wolf found the pedestal, Cinder quickly arrived and used her fire powers to dry out the river. She stepped on the bottom as steam surrounded her. The pedestal was covered in moss. It was something from a different age, and the relic seems to react with it. She held the Relic up and spoke to it, "It seems like I didn't need your knowledge after all, you worthless thing… It's time to get the real prize."

She placed the glowing blue relic over the stone, and its glow seems to interact with the pedestal. It's fueling it with power. It started to glow blue like the relic.

Suddenly a tremor echoes in the land, going as far as the horizon.

The earth was shaking violently near Cinder, but it only made her smile. She could feel something emerging from the ground, and soon everyone could see it. The ground was split, and something started lifting itself from under the forest. A temple, with its ceiling being taken by trees due to the long time since it was last summoned. It was simply gigantic — big as a mountain, with its design mostly made of squares and pillars covered in moss. It was slowly lifting itself off the ground, and in short of a dozen minutes, she should be able to spot the entrance.

And would you believe it…

Qrow, Ruby and Yang were standing in a place not too far.

They could feel the tremors, and turned their heads to see the gigantic temple rising in the forest far away. They looked at each other in disbelief. Qrow immediately told Ruby to hold still with Yang while he goes see what the fuck is that. It's clear by Ruby's face that she won't obey.

Qrow runs towards it with his sword in hand, and starts meeting up with a bunch of loose Grimm who Cinder was commanding. He starts slashing them apart easily, but eventually he finds the big boys Beowolves, and struggles a bit. Just then Ruby and Yang arrive, and they start fighting together. Qrow says, "Listen, if you're not going to listen to me at all, the least you can do is say it right away! And what about you Yang, think you got this?"

"Are you kidding me? I've never felt better in my life!" Yang said. Note that she's still wearing her tribal outfit with the leopard hide skirt, but all the red bits that once symbolized the Branwen now were replaced by purple and black. As for Ruby, she's wearing the same original outfit from volume 4 and 5, as she found it in an ancient basement. Qrow is dressed in the same style, basically a Guts cosplay.

The trio made their way through the Grimm horde, of which was quickly getting bigger as they fought. But, with Qrow on their side, a fight against Grimm is pretty cake. Soon they arrive at the rising temple. And there they spot her… Long crimson dress, black hair, and a choker around her neck. She turns around and looks at them with shiny silver eyes — a look of surprise. but then hatred.

"You got to be kidding me..." Cinder says.

Ruby and Qrow's eyes lock into her, but Yang says, "uh… who's that?"

Before any words could be said, Qrow and Ruby dashed ahead with rage taking their faces. They achieved a great speed that surprised Cinder. She immediately shot a stream of fire out of her hand to hit them, but Qrow and Ruby dodged it. They got in range, and so the two unleashed powerful sword slashes at Cinder at the same time. Cinder quickly formed two swords made of pure fire to block their attacks. In that one second she was face to face with Ruby and Qrow. Time seemed to have slowed down. She undid her sword and created an explosion in her palm to blast Qrow away, and kept locked in a clash with Ruby.

Cinder giggled, "If it isn't little Rose… I gave you the chance to survive… and you wasted it…"

Ruby gritted her teeth. "If someone is going to regret that… it will be you!"

"Is that so? Hmm… Tell me, what has changed since our last encounter?" Cinder asked.

And just then, they hear that classic blast sound from Yang's gauntlets. She launched herself in the air and was about to hit Cinder with a haymaker, forcing her to block and step away. Qrow managed to run back quickly and almost hit Cinder with a sneak attack. The trio regroups, and they explain to Yang real quick who Cinder is, and why they have to take her down. Yang simply smashes her fists together, ready to fight.

What follows is a quick demonstration — it's a similar fight to the end of the last volume, except here Ruby is at the top of her game and is fully rested. She and Yang manage to pick up the pace and fight together with Qrow despite their difference in power. Eventually, as they were fighting, Ruby spots the relic on the pedestal behind Cinder. She figures it's the cause of this sudden temple appearing, and that can't be good. And so, she prepares her sniper and fires a round straight into the relic, knocking it out of the pedestal.

The temple suddenly stops rising, and Cinders screams, "NO! You-! MORON!"

She shots a volley of fire bullets at Ruby, of which she has to dodge using Rose Burst. Cinder tried to get the relic, but Qrow was coming at her with such fury and determination that he looked stronger than Ozpin at that point. Qrow couldn't possibly hate Cinder more, and that hatred was feeding his Aura. She needs to get the relic, so she unleashes a loud scream. Suddenly many Grimm come from the forest and start attacking the three. It gives Cinder enough time to grab the relic and place it back on the pedestal.

The sheer number of Grimm seems to be enough to overwhelm them. For a second, Ruby lets her guard down as she takes aim at Cinder again. A Grimm attacks her from behind, and she reacts too slowly to counter. It was going to sink its teeth on her… but then her salvation appeared from the skies.

Ruby could see something up there as she turned around — a glimmer. Before she could think about it, Myrtnaster comes flying down and impales the Beowolf through its head, killing it instantly. Weiss suddenly appears in the battle, with a majestic fall and a cool ballet pose. She was dressed in arguably her best gear so far, given to her by Klein. She was wearing a white fencing outfit, but made special by several pieces of silver armor on her shoulders, arms, hips and boots, not to mention her usual combat skirt and a small red cape by her shoulders. Basically it's a female version of Nikolas Schnee's armor. Her hair was long, luxurious and untied, and she looked super ready to rumble.

Ruby is in shock. "Weiss… I can't believe it… you… you came back… You came back to us-"

Suddenly Weiss slaps Ruby in the face as she was inching closer for a hug.

"You idiot! I leave you for a single month and you throw yourself into the most dangerous place in the world?! Have you really lost your mind?!" Weiss said, immediately fighting with Ruby on their first encounter.

"GEEZ, YOU'RE STILL SO MEAN! I was so happy to see you!" Ruby said, but then suddenly Weiss actually hugs her.

"So am I… I missed you a lot… But we have no time for that! Let's fight!" Weiss said, ripping her sword out of the Grimm's head, and starting to battle with them.

Qrow had a wide smile, "You kids sure are something else."

As they were fighting, they proceed to catch up in comical fashion, with Weiss complimenting Yang's new haircut, and telling a summarized version of all the hell she went through on the way here. Weiss is not the last one to join them, as Weiss warns that "she" should be arriving soon. She was right. The four started hearing the sound of a motorcycle in the distance — an engine sound that was familiar to Yang. They looked over the hills, and they saw…

A motorcycle came flying in. It was Bumblebee, Yang's bike.

The person riding it was none other than Blake. She immediately jumped off the bike, letting it crash on a Grimm while she slashed off the head of another one. She arrives making her cool pose just like Weiss, and she's dressed in appropriately-epic fashion just like the others. Her hair was cut short like Yang, and she was wearing her ninja style of the Menagerie Guard outfit — with the golden sashes, long tail coat, high heels, long sleeves and golden armor pieces. Ruby, Weiss and Yang kept staring at her while Qrow went ahead and drove the enemies towards him in order to buy them time. "Take your time, ladies — I won't hog all the fun."

...

After a long silent stare down between the four, Blake said, "You know I'm not good with words… and… there are so few ways to ask for forgiveness… But I'm sorry… I'm so, so sorry… I don't want you to forgive me, and you shouldn't, but just… just let me be useful to you. Please… just one more time… let me fight by your side just one more-"

Suddenly Blake is caught off guard by Ruby's hug.

Right after her came Yang, and then gently, Weiss. Blake immediately starts to cry, and she tries hard not to. "What's… just what's wrong with you three?!… Why aren't you furious?!… You shouldn't just… forgive me..."

Yang said, "Didn't I say it already? You're my friend… and if you're my friend, you're my friend until I'm gone. That's the way it is, like it or not… I'm never letting you go because of something so stupid… I'm never letting anyone go anymore… not while I'm around."

Ruby said, "I don't know why you ran… Did you think I was angry at you?… I don't care who you were before we met… because I knew who you really were, on the inside… You weren't lying when you said we were friends… and neither was I… What kind of leader would I be if I turned my back to my friends?!"

Weiss said, "I burned too many bridges in the past… I thought it was the right thing to do… to distance myself from everyone who could push me back… I will never make that same mistake again… Blake… I know that you still chose us in the end… You're here, after all… That's all I need to see…

But girls… now it's not the time to cry… we have a job to do." she finished.

...

And so… after trial after trial, life and death battles and much suffering… Team RWBY is back.

And immediately they jumped together to help Qrow, and they easily began mowing down any Grimm on her way. Just this month they manage to get even stronger. With Qrow on their side, they easily tear down the entire horde in one, beautiful, synergistic sequence of pure fighting and friendship. It's like they were never apart. Eventually they arrive at Cinder, and they waste no time attacking her, as she defends the Relic.

Working together, for the first time, their combined efforts are capable of doing something. They rushed her together with all their combo moves, and in the end Ruby got her by surprise with a scythe slash, slightly scraping her face. With their combined power and skill… They managed to make Cinder Fall bleed. The slit on her face is clear, and so the blood slowly trickles to her chin, and droplets on the ground. They backed away, and watched as Cinder looked down on her own blood… and so maddening fury appeared in her face.

"YOU MISERABLE… WORTHLESS BRATS!"

Fire started surrounding her like a dragon ball character. She started levitating in the air, and burning the grass around her. Finally, Cinder was about to get serious. The girls felt a chill from her power, and so did Qrow. Cinder attacked ferociously, and started kicking their ass really hard with both absurd fire powers or her own hand to hand fighting skills. Team RWBY was being easily beaten now, and Qrow was there to make sure she didn't killed them. This fight is hardcore. We're running out of time for the volume… What could happen next?

As they reconvene together against Cinder, Ruby felt a touch in her shoulder, and it seemed to have made everything stop.

"That's enough…" he said.

The expression on Cinder's face was priceless. All that rage turned to fear.

Ruby turned around with all the other girls… and they saw him.

He walked forward with his cane as he spoke. It's him.

"Professor Ozpin!" the four said in unison.

"Team RWBY… you did unfathomably well. Much, much better than I could ever hope to do in your age. I'm very proud of you all… but, this battle does not concern you… I still have a few more things to teach you." said Ozpin, making his astounding appearance at the end of the volume, and dressed in actual fighting gear for a change. Cinder is still looking at him in shock, and backing away as he steps closer. "So, miss Fall… I hope that you remember what I told you. I said it, didn't I?… I'm a man of my word." Ozpin finished. As he said that, he raised his hand, and the purple flame from his Semblance engulfed his hand.

With this final, climactic stare down between Ozpin and Cinder… she smiles.

The battle, believe it or not, has only begun.

Far away, a man in the shadows is resting against a tree. Suddenly… he wakes up.

Cut to black. Credits Roll… and so it ends Volume V.

Commentary (spoilers): Yes, the ending is an absolute cliffhanger. I didn't originally intend to reunite all of them on the same volume, but I believe their reunion just wraps up the story perfectly. The volume arc was their reunion after all, regardless of their individual stories. You might be wondering what's the deal with the temple… well, I still wanted to utilize the vault of the spring maiden stage within the story, and I couldn't go to Haven without facing a few problems. My solution was to place one of the relics hidden away from the rest of the world; since we only have three nations and four relics, one of them had to be somewhere in the wild. From that, we can understand that Cinder is trying to collect all of them, or maybe just one in particular. What they are was not explained yet, for now they are only macguffins with some sort of power. Now I realized how I spent an entire volume without talking about them or even mentioning. The whole journey had so much character and so little plot. The next volume might follow suit, but it will end on a ton of exposition after the final battle.

We spent so much on the four main characters, so now we have to shift focus to the rest until they are all brought together again. I'm satisfied with how this turned out; I'm still unsure which of the four stories I liked the most. My only regret is not effectively integrating the hunt for Cinder into the end; they just had to stumble upon it when returning home, since it wouldn't make sense for them to continue chasing Cinder after rescuing Yang. At least they were right; she was in Anima, somewhere.

Now looking in retrospect, damn I was lying about this being the volume with the least amount of fights. Honestly sucks for the 90% of people who only watch the first season of a show and not the rest, because looking back now Volume I is kind of pathetic. Of course I couldn't play my full hand from the beginning, and in comparison to now, everything from the past was just the fun adventures of the girl's last remaining youth. Those simple times are over, and even if they return to it like it was… the girls are ultimately changed as people. There was a lot of symbolic growth, but the characters haven't changed too much in their personalities. Their reunion at the end might feel a little cheap once you realize that the four girls have no idea what kind of shit each other has just been through, but they accept each other anyway without knowing. It's beautiful to the audience, but lackluster in canon. And don't worry, Blake will have an entire volume dedicated to her redemption.

Well I hope you're patient, because the next volume will take three steps back. I'll see you then, in the next chapter. see Ya!