#what if cinder fell for ruby in vol 2 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bridgyrose · 7 months ago

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Could I drop a fic idea? What about v9 ruby, just after drinking the tea suddenly finds herself in beacon just before vytal, but she's still v9 rubes and vol 2 RWBY is there still witnessing this future version of their leader desperately working to prevent everything and the more they interact with future ruby the more they can't shake the feeling they all failed her in the future

(This was a fun idea to write.)

Ruby felt herself fall through the air, already certain she knew her fate. She was dead. She had drank the tea that Neo had given her, she had been beaten and killed, and she no longer had to worry about being a burden to her team and letting them down. And now, all that was left was to ascend and to take a new role, one that she couldnt possibly fail.

Atleast, that is what she had thought until she suddenly felt herself on the ground again. There was no thud, no pain, just the feel of grass under her. The sound of people chattering filled the air as she opened her eyes to find herself in the familiar grounds of the Vytal Festival.

“Are you okay?”

Ruby froze as she heard the voice of her younger self speak to her, heart raced as she took a glance around the stalls that still stood, almost certain what she saw was a dream. And yet, it all felt real. She could still feel the cool breeze that blew across her face, smell the food that was cooking at each of the food stalls, hear the chimes and people chatting about the teams that had already fought.

“Miss, are you okay?” the younger Ruby asked again. “If you’re this dazed, we should get you to the infirmary-”

“I’m fine,” Ruby answered as she picked herself up. “I-I… I guess I got a bit too relaxed. Fell asleep and lost track of time.”

“Well, try not to get too relaxed again or you’ll miss the matches. Speaking of, I need to find my team so I’m not late to ours. We’re up against team ABRN first. I hear they’re really tough, so it should be a fun match.”

Ruby nodded and watched her younger self rush off to make it to the coliseum, still a bit dazed. She swore that she had been in the Ever After just a few minutes ago, but here she was, back at Beacon during the Vytal Festival. But if she was back here, then that meant she had a second chance to stop everything that went wrong. A chance that she could make everything right and no longer carry that same burden.

She heard her stomach growl and she winced, not realizing just how hungry she was. “First a meal, then I can find Cinder and stop her.” Ruby sighed and started to make her way to the nearest food stand, mouth already watering as she smelled the different foods she’d missed. Noodles, takoyaki, cinnamon buns, sweets of all sorts, an overload of smells that she had missed all those months ago, finally settling for a bowl of noodles just like she had with her team.

Ruby took the bowl as it was handed to her and took her time to savor each bite of the noodles, almost relaxing as she took the time to enjoy her meal. She had lost herself to the moment, listening to the crowds around her and letting herself relax and put her guard down even for the brief moment she had. And for once since Beacon had fallen, things had felt right.

She finished her noodles and glanced at the screen at the stall, a small smile crossed her lips when she saw that her younger self and her team had beaten ABRN. Everything was still going as she remembered. And as long as she could keep ahead of Cinder, she might be able to prevent Beacon from falling. Though, that did leave her with the issue of trying to remember where Cinder and her team were at and trying to figure out what she could do about them anyway. It wasnt like she could just go straight to Ozpin, he’d have questions that she’d never be able to answer. And if Qrow was already here, he’d recognize her right off the bat, which would also bring more questions than she could answer already. If she was going to do this, she was going to have to do this alone.

Ruby paid for her noodles and made her way back to Beacon. Though, as she walked through the courtyard, she found herself slowing down. She could remember the day Beacon fell as though it had happened yesterday, citizens running and screaming as grimm ran through the streets, buildings collapsing and burning as the White Fang caused chaos, watching Pyrrha die in front of her… her heart raced as she took a breath to try to ground herself. That wouldnt happen again. She would never let that happen again. She could stop all of it, allow herself to continue to attend Beacon, earn her license naturally and never let her younger self have to go through losing her friends the way she did.

That was, at least, her intention until she ran into her younger self again, knocking her over. “S-sorry,” Ruby said as she offered a hand. “Guess I wasnt watching where I was going.”

“Its fine,” the younger Ruby answered as she took Ruby’s hand and got up. “Though, I’m glad to see you on your feet.”

“You know her?” the younger Weiss asked. “Why am I even asking? Of course you made another friend.”

The younger Yang playfully punched the younger Weiss’s shoulder. “Let her be. Besides, dont you think her new friend looks… familiar?”

“She does, doesnt she?” the younger Blake asked.

“Look, its a long story, but I… I need to go.” Ruby pushed past her younger self and her team to make her way to the dorms. “I’m looking for someone and its important I find them.”

“Maybe we can help,” the younger Ruby said. “We can point you in the right direction.”

Ruby shook her head. “You should get something to eat. I saw your match and I’m sure you’re hungry.” She pulled out some lien and handed it over to her younger self. “There’s a noodle stand I’m sure you’ll enjoy. It’ll cater to all of your tastes.”

“I cant accept-”

“Consider it a gift for fight well done.” Ruby relaxed and started to make her way to the dorms. “And enjoy yourselves. You dont know how long you’ll have to do so.”

—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ruby leaned against a wall after hours of searching the dorms for Cinder or her team with no luck. No one seemed to know who she was talking about, and the one room she was pointed to had already been emptied as if they were preparing to leave right after the festival. And yet, she still couldnt seem to find them. “Maybe I should’ve gone to Ozpin first,” she said to herself. “If I explained things, he’d at least be able to understand. Though, I’m sure he’d ask how I knew about this and would probably accuse me of working with them, and I’m not entirely sure how he’d accept my answer of being here.”

She sighed and pulled out her scroll, pausing when she finally saw the time. It was about time for the singles rounds to start. Which meant Yang and Penny… Ruby dashed through the halls with her semblance to make it towards the arena. She had to make it there before the fight to warn Yang about fighting Mercury. And while she had no doubt that Yang would win, it didnt matter if she got disqualified again. But if she could get there fast enough-

“Alright, that’s everyone that can get in, you’ll need to wait for the next transport,” one of the Atlas soldiers said as he closed the door to the airship carrying people up to watch the fights. “Next one will be back in about ten minutes, plenty of time to catch the start of the first round.”

Ruby pushed her way through the crowd, only to stop as she watched the airship take off and make its way up to the arena. Her heart pound in her chest as her eyes stayed glued to the airship. Ten minutes was going to be too long to wait if it meant getting to Yang after her fight had started. But, seeing as even with the control she had with her semblance now, she still wouldnt be able to get high enough to reach the arena, all she could was wait.

The airship arrived soon enough and Ruby boarded once she was allowed to, nervous as she waited for the airship to fill before it’d take off. She glanced at her scroll once more and saw that it had been time for the fight to start. It was already too late to warn Yang, but maybe she could stop it. Emerald had to be in the stands and if she could find her, then she could put a stop to whatever she did.

She tapped her foot as the airship took off and stared out the window as she watched Beacon below her get farther away as she arrived up towards the arena. Once the doors opened and she could get off, she rushed towards the stands near the fight as quickly as she could. She kept her eyes peeled as she made her way through the crowds and into the stands, slowing as she started to watch the fight. She had almost forgotten how quickly Yang had nearly lost the fight, though, the more she watched, the more it almost seemed like Mercury was toying with her.

Ruby shook her head and started to make her way to a nearby Atlas soldier. “You need to stop this fight.”

“Please sit down and enjoy yourself,” the soldier said as he tried to move Ruby out of the way. “Besides, the fight’s almost over.”

“I can see that but-” the words stopped as Ruby as she finally caught a glance of Emerald in the stands. Without another word, she rushed over to her to stop her from getting Yang disqualified. And then she stopped as she heard Mercury yell out in pain.

“My leg!” Mercury yelled out as he clutched his leg. “You broke my leg!”

“He attacked me!” the younger Yang yelled out. “Didnt you see that? He attacked-”

Ruby felt her heart break as she watched Yang watch the camera footage, too late to stop Emerald. But it was only one mess up. Sure, she couldnt keep Yang in the tournament, but she could stop Penny from being torn to pieces and stop Cinder from causing Beacon to fall. All she had to do was get Emerald and then-

“You need to come with me.”

Ruby froze as she heard Qrow’s voice behind her and felt his hand on her shoulder. She slowly turned around and gave him a nervous smile. “Hey… Qrow.”

Qrow rolled his eyes and pulled Ruby with him. “Come on, we need to go see Ozpin.”

“Wait, I cant go see him yet!” Ruby retorted as she tried to pull out of his grip. “I have something I need to do-”

“And I need to find out why you look like my niece.” Qrow sighed and glanced over towards Yang as she was led out by some soldiers. “But first, Ozpin wants to talk to you and I need to see what’s going on with Yang. So come with me and then you can explain what you’re doing.”

Ruby sighed and followed Qrow without another argument as her eyes caught the younger version of her team make their way back to the dorms. It was different watching from this perspective, how much she didnt realize just how much even then she always hid what she felt, still seeing a smile on her face.

Once they were far enough, Qrow finally spoke. “Why do you look like my niece?”

“Its… its a long story and I’m not entirely sure you’d believe me,” Ruby answered. “But that doesnt matter. What does is that I… I know what’s going to happen and we can stop it.”

“And what’s going to happen?”

“I can answer once we get to Ozpin.”

“Fine, but then you have to explain everything.”

“I will.” Ruby boarded the airship with Qrow and watched as Amity started to pull away. Two hours. She had two hours until Penny would be called to fight, two hours to try to prevent all of this. And yet, it still seemed like an impossible task.

She sighed as the airship landed and she was escorted to Ozpin’s office, her heart raced as she entered Beacon tower and brought into the elevator. Time almost felt like it slowed as she waited for the elevator to reach Ozpin’s office, her thoughts and fears raced through her mind as she tried to keep herself focused. Save Penny, stop Beacon from falling, and everything would be right. And as the elevator door opened, all she could do was take a breath and try to relax as she practically shook in her boots.

“Ah, Miss Rose,” Ozpin said as he looked up from his desk. “You’ve finally joined us.”

Ruby slowly made her way over to sit down in front of his desk. “You… you know who I am?”

“I’d recognize one of my students anywhere.”

Qrow rolled his eyes. “And how can you be sure this is Ruby? You know she and her team are going to be in their dorm with Yang. How can she be here too?”

Ozpin took a sip of his hot chocolate. “That will be for her to explain.”

“I’m… I’m not sure…” Ruby sighed and looked at her scroll. An hour and a half. An hour and a half left. “I cant explain why I’m here, but I know I can fix things. Or at least stop what’s about to happen.”

“And what is going to happen?” Qrow asked as he eyed her. “What do you know that we dont?”

“Cinder… Cinder and her team plan to bring Beacon down to get at the relic. She’s going to kill Penny during her fight and its going to cause panic across Remnant.”

“That’s quite the accusation.” Ozpin motioned for Qrow to leave and moved a few papers. “Qrow will take a look to see if he recognizes them, but until then, there’s not much we can do.”

“You have to stop the tournament!” Ruby said as she stood up, slamming her hands on the desk. She paused when she caught Qrow staring at her near the door, and she slowly sat down again. “If Penny is called to her fight, then it’ll be too late.”

Ozpin sighed and looked at Ruby almost apologetically. “And unfortunately, I cant do that. I’m no longer in charge of security of the festival, which means I cant stop the tournament. At least, not until we have proof that Cinder is who we’re looking for. Though, I’m sure she’ll be with her teammate while he’s getting his leg looked at.”

“He’s going to be in the camera room.” Ruby paused for a moment. “He’ll… he’ll be in the camera room. I’ll stop him there!”

“Wait Ruby-”

“I can still stop this!” Ruby said as she rushed to the elevator and tapped her foot impatiently as the door closed and the elevator slowly made its way down the tower. She checked her scroll and paused for a moment. She had less than an hour to make it to that camera room and stop Mercury. And as long as she could stop him, then Penny could live.

The elevator made it to the bottom of the tower and Ruby rushed out as soon as the door opened. She pushed with her semblance to make it to the airship to get up to the arena to stop Mercury, only to once again miss the airship up to wait for the next one. She took a few breaths as she waited to calm herself, to focus on what she needed to do.

A sigh of relief left her lips as the next airship finally came. She made her way on board and tapped her foot as she waited for the airship to take off, fingers tapping her scroll as she waited for the airship to land. Thirty minutes. Thirty minutes until Penny would be called and to stop Mercury.

Once the airship landed, she rushed towards the camera room with her semblance and opened the door. Ruby relaxed a bit once she didnt see Mercury there, and leaned against the door frame. “He’s not here, which means I beat him and I can stop all of this.”

“And what exactly are you planning to stop?” Mercury asked as he entered the maintenance hallway.

Ruby unfolded her scythe and readied herself as she stared at Mercury. “As long as I keep you from messing with the cameras, everything will be fine.”

Mercury smirked as he looked up at the screens that showed the next round of fighters. “Polarity against a machine. That’s not going to end so well, is it? Well, doesnt matter if you stop me, my jobs to keep the cameras rolling during the fight. Cant let anyone miss it, can we?”

“What do you mean?” Ruby asked as she lowered her scythe. “If I stop you from messing with the cameras-”

“Penny is still going to be torn apart.”

Ruby’s arms shook as she glanced towards the arena to see Penny and Pyrrha fight, and then towards the camera controls. If she couldnt stop the fight, then she could at least stop it from being broadcast. Penny could be rebuilt, but if no one sees her die-

She was pushed out of her thoughts as Mercury rushed towards her, instinctively blocking a kick with her scythe as she was pushed back. Then, she saw her younger self make it to the door, just like she’d done before. “Ruby, you have to go! Find Emerald!”

Mercury paused for a moment when he saw the younger Ruby at the door start to run off. “She’ll never find her in time. Everything is already in place.”

Ruby took a breath and steadied herself. “All I have to do is stop the broadcast.”

“And I wont let you.”

Ruby pulled back as Mercury rushed towards her, blocking kick after kick with her scythe and pushing away from him as she kept an eye on the fight. All she needed was an opening to turn off the broadcast and everything would finally be fixed. And yet, that opening seemed so far away as Mercury kept rushing at her. She blocked kick after kick, pushed him back with her scythe and took a few shots at him, but nothing seemed to get him to back off.

“You seem distracted!” Mercury said as he pushed off a wall and slammed into Ruby. “And now, you can watch everything fall.”

Ruby froze as she watched Penny get torn apart on the broadcast again, but this time, things were different. This time, she could hear the metal crunch as the wires wrapped and cut through Penny in the broadcast. Five seconds. All it took was five seconds for it to be all over.

She got up and rushed outside, only to pause as the world around her seemed to quiet as panic took over the audience. As the grimm started to swarm, the world almost seemed to freeze for her. After everything, she had still failed.

“You failed again, didnt you?�� the younger Ruby asked. “Or atleast, you failed me, right?”

“I… I did… I was supposed to fix everything.” Ruby dropped to her knees as if she felt the weight of the world on her. She watched as the nevermore broke through the shield of Amity as the citizens started to be escorted out. “I can still stop Cinder-”

“And what will that change? Even if you managed to change things here, it doest change anything for you, right?”

“It can.” Ruby stood up and faced her younger self. “If I stop Cinder here then everything goes back to normal-”

“And then you, what, stay here in a fantasy of your creation?”

Ruby took a step back as she watched the world around her start to shatter as if it was a mirror, collapsing around her until nothing was left besides her and her younger self. “I… I dont understand.”

“You failed us, but that doesnt mean you have to end it like that.” The younger Ruby offered her a hand. “You may not be able to go back into the past and fix your mistakes, but you can move forward and move on.”

Ruby took her younger self’s hand and watched her disappear. Once she was certain she was alone, she dropped to her knees and closed her eyes to keep a few tears from streaming down her cheeks. “I… I dont know what to do.”

“All you have to do now is wake up.”

#rwby #ruby rose #rwby ruby rose #mercury black #drabbles #angsty drabbles

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kittyprincessofcats · 2 years ago

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RWBY Volume 9 Ep 1 - A Place of Particular Concern

I wanted to make this post before episode 2, but oh well - in my defense, I was sick. (I also haven’t watched episode 2 yet, so for me it still is “before”.)

I’ll try to be brief as well and just write down the stuff I really want to say. Don’t know if I’ll make a post like this for every episode either, depends on whether I’ll feel up for it. (Likely not, but I wanted to do it this time.)

- First things first: Aaah, RWBY is finally back! For me this is actually a first-time experience too, since I didn’t get into RWBY until Volume 8 was already almost over. (If I remember right the last few eps of Vol 8 were the first ones I actually watched “live” (or well, with a week’s delay)).

- As a whole, I’m a lot more relaxed about Volume 9 than I was about late Volume 8 (or than I am about Volume 10). Because we’re taking this detour in the Ever After (a good choice imo, since RWBY has so many characters by now that it can get a bit overwhelming), and the only named characters here are Team RWBY, Jaune, and Neo, I don’t have as much to get anxious about. My only faves here who could get hurt are Team RWBY, and since they’re the main characters I think they’ll be fine. My other faves are either not in the void (Cinder, Salem, Ilia) or already dead (Penny... don’t touch me I’m still not over it), so I think this volume is going to be comparatively easy on my nerves (now watch me eat my words as Team RWBY goes through hell...). (My little sisters’ faves are Jaune and Neo respectively, so I’ll see how they like this volume...)

- I wonder who the mysterious narrator in the beginning is. Well, we’ll find out. (But the last time we had a “mysterious narrator” she turned out to be very important, so...)

- Love how it wastes no time throwing us back into the Vol 8 ending from Ruby’s POV.

- Who’s voice is that calling “Ruby!” when she wakes up at the beach? Is that still Penny? Sounds more like Yang to me, but I’m really not sure.

- The two suns made me think of Star Wars.

- I love Little. (And I also like that Ruby being kind to a little mouse even while she’s going through a lot herself is what ends up freeing Weiss and Blake from the mice. Kindness is good and all that.)

- Interesting to know that cartoons exist on Remnant. Makes sense, though, they have TVs and all after all...

- Bit sad we didn’t get to see Weiss and Blake’s reunion. Also, is this the first time they’ve said the name “Gambol Shroud” out loud in the show?

- The way Weiss tells Blake “I’m really glad you’re okay”... Yeah, until just now she thought all of her teammates were dead. And she’s clearly still processing that Penny’s dead for real.

- Weiss cheering Blake on when she’s trying to get her weapon is adorable.

- Love how Ruby nudges her shoulder to wake Little up.

- “I can be your trusty guide” -> cut to them falling asleep. I love Little.

- “I don’t know if anyone else fell, no.” Oh, I just remembered again that none of Team RWBY know that Jaune is down here, too. They won’t look for him because they don’t know he’s here. And they might not run into him, either. So, what if they just straight up don’t meet him? I’ve even seen theories they might leave the Ever After without him since they don’t know... oh boy, I think something interesting is definitely in store for Jaune this volume.

- The Jabberwalker is terrifying and we definitely haven’t seen the last of them.

- That moment when Ruby wants to join the fight but the realizes she doesn’t have Crescent Rose anymore... yeah, based on the intro as well, I wonder if it’ll maybe take a while - maybe even the whole volume? - until Ruby gets Crescent Rose back.

- “I said I wasn’t done with you yet!” Oh... shout out to Barbara for how she voiced this line. Also, I’ve said it before: Yang is so badass. Thinks she’s dead, only has one arm, still goes afte the Jabberwalker.

- “Dammit! You weren’t supposed to be here!” The way her voice breaks here, oh gosh... Yang just wanted to protect Ruby, she was ready to sacrifice herself for Ruby, and to see now that it didn’t work as Ruby and the others still fell... let me give Yang a hug. (They might also have to talk about those self-sacrificial tendencies, because while I get the “protective big sister instinct” - you’re important too, Yang.)

- “If you thought we wouldn’t come for you, then you must have forgotten who raised me.” When I first heard this line, I thought Ruby meant Tai (and Summer) by this, but then I saw people say that she meant that Yang raised her and gosh... that’s both even sweeter and even more heartbreaking. (But also, Ruby... you didn’t actually “come for” Yang, you though she was dead and then you all fell into the void by accident. Not saying you wouldn’t have come for her if you’d known, but that’s not quite what happened.)

- I’ll be squeeling about that Bumbleby tackle-hug for the next few weeks, thanks for asking. The way Blake says “Yang” so softly, the way Yang touches her head and smiles... it’s perfect. Everything I wanted for their reunion and more.

(Also, I don’t want to get into negativity too much here, but it’s astounding how I’ve already seen the dumbest discourse ever over this scene. “Yang should have hugged Ruby instead; why would she care about someone more than her sister?” and similarly braindead takes... like WTF? Yang and Ruby literally had a really sweet sisterly moment right before this. Yang and Ruby have hugged before. Like, what kind of a braindead take is this? Are people who have siblings not allowed to also have significant others or other people they love and care about? Honestly, it’s just straight-up homophobia, let’s call it what it is. If this hug had happend between, say... Ren and Nora, after one of them thought the other was dead, literally no one would be grasping at straws to find something to complain about. No one would be calling it “ship baiting” or throwing fits. If it doesn’t bother you when it’s a man and a woman, but it does when it’s two women or two men - that’s homophobia. And a lot of the haters also seem to go down the whole “but it’s not canon” rabbithole and like... yes, it is. Just because Blake and Yang haven’t kissed or confessed their feelings out loud yet doesn’t make them not canon. They’re canonically in love, that much is explicitly clear. Deal with it or leave.)

- I like the build-up to Weiss telling everyone what happened (rule of 3 - when Blake and then later Ruby ask, she keeps saying they have to find Yang first and she’s not letting herself really process it either. But when they’re finally all together, Weiss finally allows herself to cry and tell them.

- Okay, time to let out my inner Nuts and Dolts shipper: WOW. The fact that Ruby just straight-up faints when she hears that Penny died. The fact that Weiss didn’t even finish speaking and Ruby already fainted... I’m so here for it! Look, I’m still heartbroken (and still in denial, hoping they’ll bring her back a second time), but if I have to deal with half of my ship being dead, then I at least want to see the other half have the most intense reaction possible to it. I want Ruby to grieve, I want Ruby to go through hell, I want her to just not be normal about this on any level. The intro already tells us that this is the “Ruby is depressed” volume, but I want that to be at least in large parts because of her grief for Penny. Ruby thought she’d lost Penny once, then she got her back, got even closer with her, fell in love with her, went through all of that trouble in Volume 8 to save her from the virus, only to find out she died anyways... yeah, I want Ruby to suffer about it and I’m so glad we’re getting that. (And in my perfect shipper-wish-fullfilment version I want Ruby to have some sort of “I loved her” line when talking about Penny later.)

- I like that Weiss left out Jaune’s exact role in Penny’s death and phrased it as “Jaune tried to help, but she sacrificed herself”. It’s not a lie and Weiss is being a good friend to Jaune by deciding that that part isn’t hers to tell. That being said, I want Ruby to go absolutely ballistic on Jaune when she finds out. I want her to blame Jaune, I want there to be a fight with tears and emotions and rage, I want it all. (To be clear, I’m not blaming Jaune, but I want Ruby to. Like I said, I want Ruby to not be normal about this. Let Ruby go apeshit over losing the girl she loves.)

- So wait, Ruby fainted and they just let her lie there? (Okay, to be fair, we don’t see what happend while she was out.)

- Okay, so Team RWBY currently don’t know that Jaune fell, that Salem has the relic, or how everyone in vacuo is doing. Weiss still saw Winter become the winter maiden and most people get to vacuo though, right?

- Side-note, what about all the random citizens who fell into the void when Cinder set off that first explosion? Team RWBY knows about them - are they going to at least try and save them too, or is this supposed to be a “they’re background characters, so let’s hope the viewers have forgotten about them” thing?

- Oh, I have feelings about Yang asking Ruby if she’s alright and Ruby brushing it off to talk about Neo instead. I hope WBY will realize that Ruby’s going through it right now.

- Yay for Blake taking charge and coming up with a plan. She’s come so far.

- Yang thought she was dead... don’t touch me.

- “I think we’re in a fairytale.” Oh, lovely line to end the first episode on.

Now for the opening:

- Love the song, first of all!

- That opening shot of Jaune and Neo! Jaune still with the broken sword and tears... Yeah, he’s not going to have a good time this volume either. Likely there’s going to be a lot of wrestling with guilt over Penny. Also, as some people have pointed out, there are quite a few parallels between Jaune and Neo. They’ve both lost someone they love (Pyrrha and Roman), they’re both keeping a tragic keepsake of that person (Pyrrha’s red fabric and Roman’s hat), they both (arguably for Jaune?) want revenge for that person’s death... yeah, will be interesting to see if this volume does anything with that.

- That montage of everyone growing more confident while Ruby receeds and becomes more depressed, the part where it’s just Ruby crying, then that montage of everyone else walking and getting faster while Ruby walks behind and gets slower and slower and hangs her head... Yeah, this is “Ruby has depression” - the volume, and I’m really looking forward to that for several reasons. First of all because I feel like Ruby is ironically one of the less developed characters on the show and I can’t wait for her to finally have the time to get that development. (This is another reason why I think it was a good call to have a smaller cast this this volume.) And secondly because I’ve been struggling with what’s likely depression and I think seeing that represented in a show I like would feel really healing.

- I would have never noticed the “no 11th hour” thing with Jaune on my own - props to all of you for picking up on that!

- Well that part with Ruby on the bridge isn’t creepy at all.

- Neo’s sitting behind a table sipping tea while wearing Roman’s hat and that’s when it hit me that she’s the mad hatter. Brilliant!

- Also, I wouldn’t have picked up on Jaune being the white rabbit (who’s always too late!) myself, but I love it. Also, this is another parallel between him and Neo and I wonder what their stories will have to do with each other this volume.

- Also interesting how we see both Ruby and Neo turning into... was her name Alyx? - well, our Alice, “the girl who fell through the world”, you know who I mean. Just like Jaune and Neo have parallels, Ruby has paralles with both of them as well (she’s also just lost the redhead she loves and might also keep a tragic keepsake of Penny’s).

Okay, one personal prediction I want to make: So far, every one of the last RWBY volumes had one character in particular stand out and steal the show for me, my “fave of the volume”, so to speak. For Volume 5 it was Ilia, for Volume 6 it was Salem, for Volume 7 it was Penny, and for Volume 8 it was Cinder. And based on the first episode and opening I think that for Volume 9 it’s going to be Ruby. That whole going through depression and mourning Penny thing... yeah, I think Ruby is who I’ll feel for the most here and I’m ready for it. Make this her volume, she deserves it. (I definitely also hope for some amazing Bumbleby moments, tough.)

I am apparently incapable of writing “short” posts.

#RWBY #RWBY Volume 9 #RWBY Vol 9 #Bumbleby #Nuts and Dolts #Ruby Rose #Weiss Schnee #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #Jaune Arc #Neopolitan #Penny Polendina #Little #a week late but whatever #also I likely won't write something like this for the other episodes #just wanted to do it this time to also write out my hopes for the whole volume #long post

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kingakatsuki13-blog · 6 years ago

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RWBY: Fall for a Rose VOL 1

Chapter 1: Fall meets Rose

It was on. After all the training and planning, the insurmountable time slowly chipping away at their foe's defenses, the years needed to build up their force to their zenith, at long last had the time come to strike. At last was the time to finally execute the hammer stroke that would mark the beginning of the end of their enemies and the final road to humanity's ruin. For millennia the master plan of her master, the Grimm lady Salem had been carefully nurtured and cultivated by the malevolent woman. It had long been her master's utmost desire to see humanity crumble; to wither and die, all done in an effort to spite the Gods and the one who had betrayed her. It would begin with the destruction of Beacon Academy and the acquisition of the Fall Maiden's power by herself. Soon she would finally have the power she had desired for so long. The power to take vengeance upon all those who had wronged her, to never be weak again but most of all its power would aide not only in attaining her master's goal, but also her own.

These were the thoughts of Cinder Fall as she walked the empty halls of Beacon Academy. With cascading obsidian locks, eyes crafted of amber, skin of snow and a physique that warriors dreamed of, Cinder was an alluring and encapsulating young woman. The Haven Academy uniform she wore at that moment also aided in enhancing her mesmerizing appearance. Only a year or two out of her teens, it gave her the youthful air of someone still naïve to the reality of the world, while adding an appearance of professionalism. However, as her thoughts revealed, her personality did not match her regal appearance. Cinder Fall despised the world around her. She held contempt for nearly everything or anyone she had come in contact with. There were save few that did not earn her scorn, the most prominent was, of course, her master, the wicked witch, Salem. When Cinder was young and had already lost and suffered so much to the unforgiving world of Remnant, it was Salem who had saved her and offered her the chance to attain the power to make her desires a reality. There were very few others that she held she seemed to have affection for but aside from them Cinder hated all of Remnant and could not wait to see it all burn. With her master's plan at last proceeding into the first phase of its endgame, Cinder simply chuckled to herself as a sly grin carved its way onto her face. She and her team had already slipped unnoticed into one of the world's strongest bastions of hope, Beacon Academy. Hidden beneath arguably the best Huntsman institution lay two deep and powerful secrets. It was Cinder's purpose to not only find and collect these secrets but to ensure that Beacon and its headmaster burned in the process.

'Soon. Very soon that power will, at last, be mine,' the dark-haired beauty thought to herself as she failed to notice her surroundings and thus She wasn't prepared for when someone shouted, "Watch out!"

Within an instant of the audible warning, the one who uttered it collided with the disciple of Salem, knocking the both of them to the ground. As her bottom landed unceremoniously to the floor, Cinder could only grunt in slight annoyance. Normally, one would react rather hostile to someone slamming into them and having them fall to the ground in such an undignified manner, however, Cinder Fall was not most people. As annoying what had transpired was, Cinder merely brushed it off as a mere triviality. The raven-haired pyromancer simply sighed as she began her attempts to arise from the floor when to her surprise a hand was thrust forward offering assistance.

"Oh, my gods I'm so sorry! Please let me help you up!" came the voice of apparently a young girl, the one who had crashed into her, already on her uniform styled shoe covered feet and offering to remedy her unintended transgression.

Cinder's amber colored eyes looked up curiously as she took in the sight of the young women with the outstretched hand The girl standing before her appeared to be around slightly younger than herself, perhaps five years her junior. She wore the standard beacon uniform. Similar to that of Haven's with some minor changes, the uniform was black with a gold trim accompanied with a red-checkered skirt. Yet, what stood out most with her attire was the addition of a rather unique red cape and hood. The young huntress' complexion was that of snow with cheeks the color of a rose. She had hair that was a fascinating mixture of red and black but her most striking feature as Cinder looked up at the Beacon student, was her eyes. The visual orbs that stared down upon Cinder appeared as if they shined with silver liquid. Cinder could not pull her sight away from them as she moved to grasp the still outstretched hand. Never before had the nefarious mastermind seen such beautiful eyes nor had she seen what lay within the eyes. Sadness, regret, youth and innocence, hope but above all kindness and love. For all her twenty-one years of life, Cinder Fall had never beheld such melancholic pureness contained within eyes of one so young. As she peered into them, Cinder felt a slight sensation flutter through her body, something she quickly shook off as the wanna-be fall maiden was finally pulled from her mesmerized state when she, at last, realized that the young girl was speaking to her once more.

"...ummm hey? Again I'm really sorry for running into you like that. I guess I was just really excited for the cool stuff that's arriving today for the festival and all that. Hehe...are you ok?" the black cherry haired student inquired to the now standing undercover criminal.

"...oh ummmm yes. Sorry... I was distracted for a moment. I'm fine and it's all right. I can understand the excitement of the festival." Cinder responded with a collected smile that betrayed little emotion except for a slight playfulness. The worried expression on the maiden's face quickly evaporated at the kind and understanding answer she received. It was then the Beacon student herself too took notice of the woman before her and after several seconds a slow blush grew upon her cheeks. In her mind, the red-cloaked huntress in training could only marvel at the beauty standing before her.

'She's so beautiful so mysterious…dangerous,' she thought, 'but…there's something else…I can't put my finger on it but,' before she could continue her train of thought, several sets of running feet approached from the opposite ends of the hall they occupied.

"Ruby!" came the call of a white-haired young woman also attired in Beacon's uniform from behind the girl who now stared at Cinder in wonder. Two others, a blonde haired brawler and a black haired feline Faunus accompanied her. The one called Ruby turned her head in embarrassment as she turned to meet the three closing in on her and Cinder.

"Hehe, sorry guys I got a little ahead of myself," she apologized to the three.

"Honestly, how can you be this excited simply over the opening ceremonies? Besides, they are four days away!" the white-haired lady stated with a slight inflection conveying aristocracy.

"Hehe yeah, Rubes. You gotta relax," cheekily grinned the blonde haired woman.

"Cinder!" rang a new voice, this one coming from behind Cinder. To this, the woman with the name of Fall turned to see her subordinates, Emerald and Mercury as they sprinted up towards their superior. "Are you alright, Cinder?" the bronze-skinned red-eyed Emerald asked.

Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black. Both were around the same age, nineteen years old and both held more combat experience than most Huntsman gained in their lifetime. Emerald was a former thief that Cinder, similar to what Salem did for her, picked her out of the gutter when seeing the girl possessed a potential for something greater. Granted Cinder did not expect to garner a slight maternal sentiment for the girl two years her junior, and yet she did. Mercury was the trained son of a now late master assassin. He was an absolute psychopath that hid his sociopathic mind beneath a calm and collected exterior, only showing the briefest glimpse at his true nature when locked in combat. Cinder more or less viewed him as an annoying but useful younger brother.

"It's fine, I just simply had a small accident by bumped into someone when I had my mind somewhere else," she said with a small giggle and a smile. She responded in such a way to Emerald and Mercury in order to not only calm the short green haired woman and the young man with the metallic legs but also in order to remind them both to keep their roles now that there were in front of a group of huntresses.

"More like it was the product of our hyperactive and childish leader that had too much sugar in her breakfast," the white-haired young woman said with a continued scolding of superiority in her voice, a tone that quickly began to annoy Cinder since she had always despised any form of aristocracy. That and for reasons she couldn't quite place, she didn't like the way the aristocratic woman was speaking of the sweet petite woman who she had bumped into. However, that annoying sensation began to dissipate once she saw the cute and funny reaction that the young woman with the red cape had at this.

"Weiss! This doesn't have anything to do with that! I was just thinking of all the stuff that's arriving today for the festival and well the tournament itself," the young silver eyed woman stated with her arms crossed, snowy cheeks more puffed and sporting a more bright shade of pink.

"Are you still thinking on that? Ruby for the one hundred and twenty-ninth time, the festival starts in four days, being nervous is fine but thinking about it twenty-four seven will make you no good!"

"Are you just cranky because you didn't get your coffee at breakfast?" Ruby asked with a playful wickedness on her face that made Cinder let out another small giggle. Something that didn't escape the ears of both Emerald and Mercury. Though they understood the role they had to play in front of others, the duo couldn't help but wonder if maybe their black-haired superior was taking her role too far...or maybe she wasn't.

"That doesn't have to do with anything!" the woman now identified as Weiss answered to Ruby.

"Jeez these two should get a room already, eh Blake?" the long blonde haired one said with a funny smile while she lightly nudged the arm of the Faunus girl.

Blake simply rolled her eyes and answered with a bored, "Sure thing Yang...," she then directed her words toward the other two girls, "Guys, if you two keep fighting like this we won't last that long in the tournament," she said as the 'voice of reason' for the two girls which stopped fighting once they heard their voice.

"...She's right. Sorry, Weiss." Ruby apologized looking away embarrassed at her own childish attitude, something that made Cinder raise a quizzical eyebrow.

'Hmmm youthful but with a hint of maturity…interesting…'

"Well...I'll admit…I was perhaps a bit to harsh as well...I offer my own amends." the heiress said, she too looking away from embarrassment at their bickering. What immediately followed was a small awkward silence as both teams merely stood across from each other, while both Schnee and Rose were turned from each other. Yet, it was that same Rose that broke the silence as she noticed that the young women still standing before her albeit now with what appeared to be her own team.

"Hehe again sorry about the whole knocking into you." Ruby awkwardly smiled while scratching the back of her head. Cinder simply smiled at the repeated apology. "And, OH! Your uniforms! Are you guys from Haven?" Ruby cried out before becoming increasingly excited at the prospect of having literally run into students from a rival school. Cinder blinked several times for a moment, slightly shocked at this sudden burst of excitement emulating from the red-cloaked warrior. Just as quickly though she recomposed herself and once more gave the girl a genuine smile.

"Hehe yes, we are. Allow us to introduce ourselves, I'm Cinder Fall and these two are my teammates..." she began before gesturing to her lackeys to introduce themselves to the Beacon team.

"Ummm Emerald Sustrai." the jade hair colored woman said as she stepped forward and offering a slight bow of greetings. Mercury followed suit of his partner by simply offering his name and adding a quaint bow as the end.

"OHHHH! So cool! Welcome to Beacon! I'm Ruby! Ruby Rose and these are my teammates!" the scythe/sniper wielding protégé sang as she too sought to introduce her team. However, Cinder firmly kept her fiery eyes trained on the grinning and innocent face of Team RWBY's leader.

'Ruby Rose? A rather lovely name...' thought Cinder as she came to realize there was truly something special about Ruby that drew her full attention.

The heiress of the Schnee family simply couldn't help herself but kick herself mentally at the over exaggerated way that Ruby had to present herself and the rest of the team. Yang giggled at the normal hyper attitude of her younger sister while Blake calmly remained stoic with her poker face at the loveable madness was Ruby.

Of the three the first one to break the silence after Ruby's awkward introduction was the long blonde haired young woman that with a foxy grin in her face proceeded to introduce herself "Name's Yang, Yang Xiao Long I'm Ruby's older sister, nice to meet ya."

"Greetings my name is Weiss Schnee, heiress of the Schnee Dust Company. It is an absolute pleasure to meet you all," the white-haired girl said with an educated and sweet way.

"I'm Blake, Blake Belladonna, nice to meet you," the long black haired faunus said in her usual distant and monotone way.

Still, all three presentations barely managed to truly register with Emerald or Mercury, both who really could care less about becoming acquainted with any of the students. Cinder also barely recognized the introduction of the rest of team RWBY as her focus remained focused on Ruby, who in turn kept her own focus on Cinder. Cinder gave a brief acknowledgment to the three others before the young woman before her suddenly erupted into a flurry of enthusiastic questions.

"So what are things like at Heaven? Is it true that you have fighting tournaments year round? What are your weapon construction programs like? How difficult is the training there! Is it deadly? How strong are you all three? Are you the leader of your team Cinder?" the black and red-haired young woman threw question after question with a big smile on her face. Said face was a few inches beneath Cinder's face, but her body was nearly pressed up against her. Due to her excitement at meeting others from another academy, Ruby had yet to realize her invasion of the evil woman's personal space.

Cinder though couldn't help but look with wide eyes as Ruby continued her comical and sudden interrogation. She could barely process the cute huntress' myriad of questions in the rapid succession in which they were asked. Cinder had prepared to be questioned by other students and perhaps even the staff regarding the school they supposedly stemmed from, she just didn't anticipate the an overly excited like Ruby. What was most distracting the nefarious women was how the younger girl was all but pressing her body up against her own. It was then Cinder realized that her heart rate had begun to elevate. For a small moment, Cinder almost believed that she was having some kind of heart attack or worse, but she quickly drove that thought from her mind. She thought for a brief moment of the possibility that she was perhaps scared of the cute and innocent team leader. The feeling was similar to the first time she had met Salem. The feeling Cinder experienced those years ago was similar to what she felt at that moment, unique and terrifying. However, this time around it felt different. It felt good.

"Do you also havbwaggh!"

Cinder shook her head as she was snapped from her trance. The sound of Ruby's questions transforming into choking sounds pulled the fiery archer from her contemplation. She bore witness as Ruby was pulled backward by her own older sister who gripped her by the back of her cape. Yang would then proceed to lift her younger sibling off of the floor and held the gagging scythe wielder at arm's length.

"Eaaasy there Ruby, I know you want to know more about them and Haven, but I bet our new friends have things to do now," Yang said with a smile.

"That's right and besides we have our own things to do now Ruby, remember?" Weiss followed up with a more calm and friendly tone than before.

Cinder chuckled at the sight of Ruby being dangled off the ground by her elder sibling before commenting, "Yes, while my team and myself would love to become better acquainted we do in fact still have much to unpack."

Ruby pouted at the fact her inquiries would have to be delayed. The young warrior wanted to discover more about the Haven trio, to be more precise she wished to learn more about Cinder. Within the minuscule amount of time since Ruby's crash into the exchange student, the youngest Beacon student had become highly interested in the young women. As she had already noted, there was an air of mystery about the raven-haired women that drew Ruby in and ignited a spark within her. Unknown to Ruby, a similar spark had been ignited within Cinder the moment both their eyes locked, yet it still remained a mystery to Cinder herself.

"Fret not little rose. I'm sure we'll see each other again. After all the festival does last for over a month," the agent of darkness said to the leader of Team RWBY. The response of Ruby came in the form of a wide and happy grin and a fervent nodding of her head.

"Ya hear that Rubes? Alright then! Let's get a move on team RWBY!" Yang cried to her team, while still holding her younger half-sibling in the air. "It was nice meeting you three! You can always find us either on the third floor of the dorms or out on the training fields!" The Xiao Long girl then marched forward, carrying her little sister. Blake and Weiss gave a passing farewell wave as they followed the Rose/Xiao-Long sisters.

As soon as the Beacon group had rounded a corner further down the hall and were well out of hearing, even for the Faunus did Emerald click her tongue in annoyance, "Tch. Little brat, knocking into you like that and then demanding all those stupid questions."

"Yeah. That and she's the leader of that team? If that's what Beacon has as students, then this is going to be easy as hell." boasted the man with the prosthetic legs. "Right Cinder?"

But he got no response, as Cinder stood still clearly deep in thought. Her chin rested in between the amber-eyed woman's thumb and index finger. Her thoughts could not escape the feeling that was fluttering inside her. What was it about the girl she had simply crashed into and spent little over five minutes talking too that made her feel such an unusual way. So deep in thought over this abnormality in an otherwise straightforward operation, that she still had not realized that Emerald and Mercury had been attempting to get her attention for the better part of a minute.

"Cinder?" Emerald inquired once more to their silent leader. Still nothing. The red-eyed girl gave a slight tap on the pyromancer's shoulder before she, at last, got a response.

"...Apologies I was thinking...Emerald, Mercury..." Cinder said in her sultry but commanding tone. Both underlings stood ready to listen to what she had to say. "I want to you two to gather information on that team...particularly their leader. That Ruby Rose."

"Ummm if I may ma'am…why?"

"She intrigues me."

#rwby #fanfic #fanfiction #cinderxruby #cinder #cinder fall #Fall for a Rose #ruby rose #fallen petals #fallenpetals #romance #what if cinder fell for ruby in vol 2

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ironwoodprotectionsquad · 3 years ago

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Penny being trans + autistic coded made me resonate with her as I am nonbinary and autistic myself. Her being a robot felt like me when I have to hide my neurodivergent traits. Her getting confirmation that she wasn't just a robot/machine but a real girl felt so validating. I don't have to look like everyone else to still be considered "real".

Ironwood's semblance being literal hyperfixiation, something I've dealt with since I have ADHD + autism would have made me feel better about myself. This is a man who, despite everything: his PTSD, being an amputee, still was a kind-hearted man. This is something rarely seen in media. I was happy.

Then they fucked up both Penny and Ironwood in ways that struck me. Penny is hacked into and forced to comply with basically forced suicide- she was to open the vault, then self-destruct.

Ironwood, oh dear god. They couldn't wait to fuck him over. He was so HAPPY to see team RWBYJNROQ. He told them everything about his plan, trusting them with literal GOVERNMENT secrets, giving them a place to stay, FREE weapon upgrades (Atlas is known for its advanced technology), hell even gave them their HUNTRESS LICENSES THREE-ISH YEARS EARLY (which Ruby later uses as a credibility source in her broadcast, which was eerily similar to Cinder's in Volume 3, when she says IRONWOOD CANNOT BE TRUSTED.)

Not to mention that she conveniently forgot she was calling for help from OTHER KINGDOMS. OF COURSE they wouldn't arrive soon enough. And no one had reason to trust her. She's a nobody. She was at the Vytal Festival and her team made it all the way to the singles? Cool. Ruby wasn't the final fighter, hell after the 4 vs 4 match she didn't compete further.

Blake would have obviously been a bad choice: she's a faunus and if anyone knows about the White Fang, they might recognize her.

Yang is more known than Ruby, but the world saw her kick an unarmed teen in the finals round. She doesn't have too good a reputation.

Weiss? She's well known as the Heiress, but also her singing. Having her give the speech is a mixed bag: on one hand, she's a recognizable face. On the other, that's a problem. Her father, the CEO of the SDC, is known for his cruelty. Blake said it herself way back in Volume 1: questionable business practices and partners.

So... How about no broadcast at all? What did her broadcast accomplish?

Nothing. Help didn't arrive and likely caused more panic. Plus, people still had a negative view of Atlas, as the last thing the world saw was Atlesian soldiers turning against civilians.

The last broadcast was before Beacon fell. So likely another hacker giving a message would be met with fear.

And what attracts Grimm? Negativity.

Ruby's broadcast could have been a DEATH SENTENCE to so many. But no, this is treated as the... Right course of action?

Ruby and co. hates Ironwood's plan, yet it's clear they don't have one. RWB spends a lot of time moping around the manor drinking tea. Team YOJR (Yang, Oscar, Jaune and Ren) actually DO SOMETHING. Oscar gets kidnapped and they chase after him. Ren rightfully points out that NONE OF THEM SHOULD BE DOING THIS. But that goes against the Hivemind™, so he must apologize and agree to whatever the fuck Ruby decides to do.

Which is NOTHING! RWBY didn't even take down the hound: WILLOW and WHITLEY did. A drunk woman and an unarmed teen defeated it.

Oscar is the one who blows up the whale (with his time bomb? huh??)

Ruby whines that it's all too much, cries on a staircase while her sister (remember that Ruby and Yang are related????) comforts her. The scene has no emotional depth because the two barely interact anymore.

OH GOD AND WHEN YANG TAKES A HIT FROM NEO THAT WAS MEANT FOR RUBY IT TAKES HER OUT COMPLETELY. AURA? GONE. HELL, SHE'S EVEN UNCONSCIOUS. I swear it's like the animation budget could only afford to have ONE character react, and it's Blake "sad kitty face" Belladonna. Not Ruby, who is her sister. WHO HAS A SPEED SEMBLANCE. But no, they just watch her fall, not knowing if she's alive.

Ruby has more of a reaction to CRESCENT ROSE, HER FUCKING WEAPON falling.

Which is retconned so hard in the Vol 9 trailer, where she tells Neo "I hope it was worth it" before falling into the void. Huh??

Anyways I'm rambling again but I am so angry!

-🎼

Never, ever, EVER apologize for rambling. I LOVE hearing peoples thoughts and sometimes it's a really nice feeling to let out your frustrations and anger towards something that has caused you harm and it really REALLY sounds like this caused you a lot of harm and so I do not blame you one bit for being hurt and angry. I should apologize for this taking so long. This was a lot and I needed to sort my thoughts and even so I probably missed some points so I also apologize for that.

Penny and Ironwoods biggest mistake was trusting and being kind to RWBY. They lied and betrayed James and treated him like garbage even though he showed them nothing but kindness and did whatever he could to help them and listened to them. Penny was told what to do and think far more so then James ever supposedly did. Ruby decided to give her a new body, decided she didn't like how James was treating her and that she thought James was a bad person, and decided that Penny was better off with them. Penny stopped being able to make her own decisions once she started hanging out with RWBY and co.

Really though what did they all think was going to happen when they sent out a message that matched beat to bear a lot of what Cinder said before Atlas fell? Did she think about the panic that would cause? Did she forget she was worried about Ironwood telling everyone back in Volume 7 because of the panic it would cause everyone??? Did that just conveniently slip her mind?

I honestly think Weiss would have been the best choice to give the broadcast of them all but I don't think they should have sent out the broadcast in the first place. It should realistically only cause panic and death but the narrative is gonna yadda yadda right past all of that.

Oh god yea RWBY and co complain and whine and scream that Ironwoods plan is bad whilst offering up no alternatives then just taking his plan and acting like it was theirs the whole time. They even did this in Volume 7 when in episode 2 they where worried about James telling Atlas about Salem and then turning around and acting all happy and shocked when James told everyone near the end of the season as if they wanted him to the whole time and not the other way around.

Man RWBY really did jack shit all volume huh? As you said all the major things side characters did: Fight James TWICE: Winter, Emerald, and JNRO.

Try and rescue Oscar: JRY

Blow up the Whale: Oscar

"Redeem" Hazel and Emerald: Again Oscar

Defeat the hound: Whitley and Willow

Launch the tower: Penny

Help defend Mantel against the swarm of Grimm: FNKI and the soldiers that all died trying to buy Ruby time while she cries in a mansion.

Like what does this girl do to help any of the people SHE trapped???

Oh god Ren, poor Ren, he's finally seeing the light but he can't stray from the Hivemind so he needs to get back in, we can't question the pure and perfect Ruby her plans are always right even if it causes Salem to get two relics and destroys the only kingdom with an army or the technology to restore global communications in the process.

Yea you're right like CRWBY can make excuses all day for why Ruby didn't react to Yang falling and MAYBE I can buy her not using her Semblance because she's in shock but not crying or reacting at ALL to her supposed death?? Why does her weapon get a more emotional response then her SISTER? Why is only BLAKE allowed to be sad about Yang supposedly dying? Why does fucking WINTER have more of a reaction to her sister dying?

Why are all the people we are supposed to be rooting for so fucking unlikeable???

#RWDE #Pro Ironwood #James Ironwood #RWBY Bashing #Pro James Ironwood #ironwood Protection Squad #penny polendina #Sorry for MY rambling #and more rambling to come most likely

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aspoonofsugar · 3 years ago

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Alright, it's the same anon from last time. So, I'm gonna try to address the things in order. I don't really mess with the whole "deserve" or "earn" redemption things because it can get messy if the word is misused, in a sense. Basically, I wasn't trying to argue if Cinder deserved redemption or not.I don’t know a lot about Save the Cat moments, so I decided to search it up and do a little research. From what I can tell, those moments are usually meant for the protags. (Heads up, very large ask)

Cinder obviously started out as an antag during the first few volumes, but it seems like Cinder changed to a villain protag at the start of Volume 6. Right, I’m trying to say that Cinder did have a Save the Cat moment at the start of Volume 6, when she became a villain protag.

Framed as an adult is something I also don’t know about so I read a lot of Hamliet and your posts about Cinder. Cinder is mentor coded to to the Mers, but if we are really saying that mentorships are kind coded to adults, couldn’t I argue that Watts, Raven, and Salem in a sense are her mentors? The only mentorship that is somewhat healthy is Raven’s and that’s because Cinder is given the opportunity to rebel. Great post about this on OneWomanCitadel's blog about this.

Furthermore, Hazel and Tyrian actually seem to be more coded as parental figures torwards Emerald and Mercury. In Emerald’s case, she needed a figure to actually care for her and show her to not be so dependent on Cinder. And Tyrian took more of a unhealthy/abusive relationship torwards Mercury, given all the scenes with him. That’s why I believe Cinder is more child coded than adult coded. (I have an insane crack theory about Cinder’s age but that’s too far lol)

It’s possible that one could argue Cinder being child coded is why the CEM fell apart (I have seperate theories about CEM but I’m keeping that to myself for now.) but to me, it’s mainly because they all project their problems on each other. Even though it seems like everyone cares about everyone in CEM (Maybe I’m reaching a bit here, but you can ignore this if you don’t agree.) it wouldn’t have worked out because of their problems that need to be healed.

And considering the point of the story…I don’t really know what you mean by that? Could you clarify? I’m gonna try to interpret what you mean by that but feel free to correct me. I’d say Vol. 8 was the halfway point to the end of RWBY. I’m of the mind that Cinder will defect at the end of the Vacuo Arc and probably start her redemption arc after she obtains the Crown of Choice and saved by Ruby and Jaune on top of Beacon Tower. Midnight allusions, stuck in Midnight, I think you get this gist.

Hi!

I am gonna break your ask in two because, if I don’t, it is gonna be difficult to answer properly :)

Ok, so this is a long answer to this post about my theory that Cinder will die in the end.

Before replying, let me clarify again that... it is just a theory. Not only that, but it is also a very future oriented one. So it might not come true and I might very well discard it at the end of next volume depending on what happens. Moreover, if Cinder survives in a way that I find satisfying, I will be happy about it. If she survives in a way that imo cheapens the story I will be pissed and the same can be said if she dies in a meaningless and hollow way.

Once this is established, let me try to answer some of your doubts.

THE POINT WE ARE IN THE STORY

I meant 2 things.

1) Imo we are 1/2 - 3/4 through the story. I think we are gonna have volume 9, then 3 volumes set in Vacuo and maybe 1 more volume set in Vale. Still, considering the current pace of the series and how many things they manage to usually cover in a single volume we might just have vol 10-11 set in Vacuo and volume 12 set in Vale.

In short, considering the number of characters and how many subplots we have, I do not think there is gonna be much time for a long redemption arc for Cinder. I think her arc is more or less going to go this way:

-she hits rock bottom in the Vacuo arc (Em + Merc confronts her + she has to face the truth about Salem and realizes what her Grimm arm is truly about)

-she is saved towards the end by Ruby (maybe Jaune)

-her being saved by her enemies + Em and Merc’s influence + the truth about Salem lead to her redemptive act in the finale

-her redemption results in her death foiling both Penny and Pyrrha

Basically, the later the redemption starts in the story, the harsher it is going to be. It is easier to have a character work on their inner change while there are still many things going on because they still have many challenges and many chances to struggle. If a character only starts to work toward a 180 degree change toward the end of the story, then the stakes are bound to be higher. Especially if it is such a central character like Cinder.

2) Cinder herself is not close to redemption in her personal arc and by the end of volume 8 she has actively refused to change. She is challenged throughout all Atlas and Mistral, but in the end she chooses to cut off all her bonds and to go back to her previous persona instead of honestly accepting her vulnerability. Not only that, but this choice has very negative consequences for others. She betrays her comrades and kills Penny aka a character very dear to both the viewers and to the protagonists. Her actions are bound to bring bad consequences for her too in the future.

In short, we are probably 3/4 in the story and Cinder has just reinforced all her negative choices and traits. She is far away from even starting to positively change. She is bound to hit rock bottom as a consequence of this. Does it mean she has to die? No. I actually think she will be saved from her spiral. Though, then she will have to show she has changed. The most likely option is for her to make a selfless choice and, given the way RWBY treats death, Cinder killing both Penny and Pyrrha and the symbolic nature of the Maidens (see the meta above), I think a redemptive death is probable.

SAVING CATS AND KICKING DOGS

Save the Cat is just another way to call a Pet the Dog moment.

In short, it is just a moment where you humanize a villain to make them more likable. It is basically a redeeming trait the character has. That said, it is not that a Save the Cat moment = redemption or that none means no redemption.

Anyway, RWBY has been given many of its villains Save the Cat moments. Like, Hazel, Emerald and Mercury all have those.

Let’s see Em and Merc’s.

Emerald: It’s almost sad.

This is Em’s. She clearly shows regret and guilt over what is happening at Beacon. This moment makes the viewers understand Emerald is not without conscience and that she is not inherently cruel. She shows doubt over her actions hence she has potential for changing.

Mercury: Emerald get up, we need to go... Emerald!

Rather than a single moment, Merc’s whole relationship with Em is his redeeming trait. So, Em is basically Merc’s Morality Pet. He clearly adores her and it is in this specific relationship that lies potential for change.

Well, Cinder completely lacks such a moment/element. She is highly sympathetic and human, but she never displays guilt over hurting others and does not selflessly care for another person. Obviously her feelings for Em and Merc are more complex than what she likes to think. Still, she does not treat them well or selflessly. She abuses and mistreats them. She leaves them behind and gives their presence in her life as a given.

Moreover, Cinder is given several moments when she displays gratuitous cruelty. Even more than necessary for her personal objectives.

For example, she does not really need to kill Pyrrha. She has already won, Pyrrha’s aura is broken and she can’t move. She could have simply gone away, but she chooses to completely burn her down.

In the Battle of Heaven she impales Weiss not because she thinks she is a threath to her, but to hurt Jaune.

In volume 6 she kills a woman whose only fault was to offer her help.

In volume 8, not only does she deeply hurt the protagonists and kills Penny, but she also betrays her comrades.

These actions can be called Kick the Dog and they are meant to cement the villanious nature of a character.

In short, general viewers are gonna be more open and forgive more easily a character that shows positive traits, rather than one who routinely displays cruelty to everyone else. Cinder is currently more in the second category, rather than the first.

CHILDREN AND ADULTS

Child-coding is about how you frame a character. It has not necessarily to do with age, but more to do about a character role in a story.

For example, Shigaraki Tomura in BNHA is a young adult, but he is framed as a child who needs to grow. He has an evil mentor who abuses him. He has child-like understanding of many things and his story parallels the MC who is a teenagers. He also has no mentee, but peers he bonds with.

In coming of age stories, usually child-coded characters have more chances of surviving and of growing positively. This is because they are more open to change, like kids.

That said, this is not always the case because there are actually different kinds of child-coding. This means you can code a character as a child for different reasons.

Some examples.

1) You initially code a character as a child, but as the story goes on the character grows and he loses said coding.

See, this is what happens with Snk main cast. They start as kids, but as the story goes on they become adults who have to protect kids. So, they are not more kids by the end. This means they must grow up in the end and the protagonist, who refuses to do so, dies in the end as a consequence. Him being initially child coded does not save him.

2) Penny is child-coded, but she still dies. This happens because her story is both a coming of age story and a tragedy. So, by the end she grows, but also dies. It is powerful, but very sad.

3) You child-code an adult to actually show they are refusing to grow/can’t grow and this is framed as a negative thing.

This third case is partially what is happening with Cinder.

To be more specific, Cinder is coded as an adult when she is introduced. This coding is consistent when it comes to her relationship with Em and Merc (and with the protagonists too... like... Cinder is not RWBY’s generation). However, as the story goes on, the framing changes and we discover she is deep down Salem’s bratty teenage daughter.

This is used to illustrate the cycle of abuse. She is abused by Salem and abuses Emerald and Mercury in return.

So, Cinder is not a child in the story in the same way that RWBY, JNR, Penny, Pyrrha, Oscar, Emerald and Mercury are. She is an adult with child-like traits and because of these child-like traits she struggles to improve her situation.

Also, a note about Cinder’s relationship with Emerald and Mercury. There is no doubt that she is their authority figure. Like, they are not peers or siblings. Cinder specifically frames herself as their guardian. This is how the story presents their relationship as well.

Roman: Oh, look! She sent the kids again! This is turning out just like the divorce!

Here, the joke is that Cinder is the mother to Roman’s father. Obviously, Roman is not the father, but the point of the line is that he sees himself and Cinder as adults and Em and Merc as kids.

Raven uses a similar language:

Raven: Two children you’ve tricked into following you.

Again, Raven does not refer to Cinder as a child. She talks to her as you would to an equal, while she treats Mercury and Em as kids.

The hierarchy of the trio is shown also by their body language at Beacon:

During their meetings, Merc and Em are constantly shown on the floor, while Cinder sits on the bed. This is not by chance. It is a figurative way to show they are not equals.

In general, Cinder herself treats them as kids when she is in a good mood:

Mercury: You should be able to take her no problem.

Cinder: It's not about overpowering the enemy. It's about taking away what power they have. And we will, in time.

Mercury: I hate waiting.

Cinder: Don't worry, Mercury. We have a fun weekend ahead of us.

And as minions when she is angry:

Cinder: Both of you, get out. I’ll let you know when you’re needed next.

This is not a relationship among peers or even siblings.

Mercury and Emerald themselves have clearly tied their respective parental issues to Cinder:

Emerald: I just... Cinder was the only family I ever had. She cared about me, taught me things... But without her here, I don't know if what we're doing--

Mercury: Wake up, already...Cinder doesn't care about you! She doesn't care about either of us!

Emerald: You don't know what you're talking about!

Mercury: You're in denial. And if you're gonna start having a crisis of identity or some crap... keep me out of it.

Mercury: I'm sorry you didn't have a mommy that loved you, but I had a father who hated me!

Emerald mentions care and learning things. They are concepts linked to a parent/mentor. Mercury specifically says Cinder cares about neither of them, compares Emerald’s relationship with Cinder to a mother-daughter one and then brings out his father.

If right now, it seems that the lines in this hiearachy are not as solid as before, it is simply because Em and Merc, like the protagonists are growing. RWBY is a story where kids inspire adults, so you have Ruby inspiring Qrow and Weiss inspiring Winter. Em and Merc will probably do the same for Cinder. This does not change the role Cinder has had in their life and does not turn her into a child.

Even the example of Watts, Hazel and Tyrian all foiling a member of CEM actually shows that the framing around Em and Merc and the one around Cinder are different.

Hazel and Tyrian, as you said, are framed as parental figures to EM. Watts is not framed as a parental figure, but as Cinder’s colleague that calls her out. They are equals. Cinder is not submissive to Watts, like Merc is to Tyrian and does not depend on him, like Em with Hazel.

In short, Cinder is framed as a child only when it comes to Salem, but this is like saying that Qrow must be read as a child because Ozpin is his mentor. It does not really hold up. What is true, though, is that both Qrow and Cinder (and Winter) are adults/mentors with childish traits rooted in their childhood issues and that they will face them/overcome them thanks to the kids they once mentored.

Anyway, this last point is kind of a tangent, but I love CEM’s relationship and I think it is essential to grasp the familial nature of it to understand their characters. Em and Merc are literally Cinder’s child selves. They are the found family that she needs, but because she is still stuck in her childhood she is unable to truly take care of them and help them as she could. This is tragic because clearly she could heal through healing them, but she can’t see it and spirals more and more.

In short, these are just better explanations of what child-coding and save the cat mean. That said, it is not that lacking any of them means certain death for the character. Similarly, having them does not necessarily mean a character will survive. However, in coming of ages stories, like RWBY is, it is common to give Save the Cats moments to a villain you wanna redeem/save and to have child-coded characters survive, while some (not all) adult characters die.

I will answer your other answers later on.

#rwby #iressent #asksfullofsugar

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electronicyarn · 3 years ago

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REALLY Not Live Blogging RWBY Vol. 8

Yes, I’ve FINALLY finished watching Volume 8. I’m only months late to the party. Well, for the sake of tradition here are my thoughts. The short version is thus. What an awful start. What a spectacular finish.

I’m not going to lie. For a while there I thought we might have another Volume 4 on our hands. Although I guess that’s not entirely fair. Volume 4’s big crime was being aggressively mediocre, something RWBY should never be. The first five episodes of Volume 8 were really bad. Not any-scene-with-Caroline-in-it-in-Volume-6 bad, but still pretty bad. The opening in particular I found to be forced and artificial. The disagreement between Ruby and Yang didn’t really come from anywhere, and half the team seemed to be divvied up based purely on the needs of the narrative rather than any proper character motivations.

Other highlights (lowlights?) include them twice using “falling from a great height” as a shorthand for danger (something that the principal cast proved they could handle early in Volume 1 with the landing strategies scene) and The Hound’s introduction where he kidnapped Oscar. I get what they were going for with The Hound’s big debut, but Team Yang really didn’t fight back. At all. They just kind of stood there with their mouths hanging open. It wasn’t a good way to credibly establish The Hound as a threat. For point of contrast, see The Neo vs. Yang fight way back in Volume 2. There was no doubt after that was over that Neo was a very real threat.

I also found everything surrounding the first Penny vs. Cinder fight (Neo vs. Maria, Emerald, etc.) to be distinctly underwhelming. It’s a problem that RWBY’s had for a while now. The less important fights in a volume are rather poorly thought out and animated. But maybe I shouldn’t complain. They do still do a great job on the primary battles. Maybe RWBY needs fewer fight scenes? Feels weird to even suggest that.

But now that I’ve ragged on Volume 8 for three paragraphs…. Wow, what a turnaround. Everything from about Episode 6 on was spectacular. Oscar and Ozpin’s relationship. Everything involving Hazel. The reveal that, yes Cinder had a horrible childhood, but she was always evil. Establishing a more personal connection between Salem and Yang, mirroring the one that Salem and Ruby already have. The destruction of Atlas. I could go on and on. And I will. But there are several things I want to talk about more specifically.

I guess first up is Nora and Ren. They’re now fully-fledged characters, having completed their slow transition from caricatures. I’ve got to be honest. I’m kind of neutral on Nora and Ren. I’m not really invested in their story, but it doesn’t annoy me either. I did however find it amusing that they simultaneously confirmed and shut down Ren/Nora being canon. Two characters in an official relationship? In our RWBY? No way! Leave it for the fanfic writers. But they did say I love you. That’s more than any other potential pairing’s gotten. (I think? I could be forgetting something.) So there’s that.

As an aside, I’m pleased that we got our requisite dose of Bumbleby subtext but also frustrated that they don’t have the stones to do more than that. I’m not surprised however. This is exactly what I predicted would happen.

Also as an aside, when Team RWBY was summoning Ambrosius, I literally said out loud something to the effect of, “Alright, Rooster Teeth. Let me see the sexy man counterpart to Jinn.” I was not disappointed. Good job, Rooster Teeth.

The next topic is Penny’s and Ironwood’s character arcs for this season. I loved both of these. Ironwood’s was one of pure tragedy. Plus it had the side effect of clearing out extraneous characters, something I always approve of as RWBY has precious little running time for what it’s trying to do. And Penny got to complete her more-literal-than-I-expected Pinocchio story. I have no doubt that some people were upset with her death, but while probably not strictly necessary, I think it was done well. It was the culmination of her self-actualization as a person. I’m not going to lie though. I thought the Winter Maiden power was going to go to Weiss (since Ruby had been conveniently dropped out of reality by that point). Way back in Volume 3 when we first learned about the Maidens my second thought was, “Four Maidens, four main characters. Hmm.” It’s pretty obvious now that’s not going to happen. Or if it does, it’ll be in the last volume.

(For the record, my first thought was, “Did you come up with the idea of the Maidens before or after you named one character ‘Summer’ and another one ‘Winter’.” And hey look. You saw what happened this volume.)

And that brings us to Neo. Neo-mother-effing-politan. Neo- “I’m going to steal from the literal devil because I know I’m going to get away with it” -politan. Yang may be my favorite character, but Neo is the best character. If she wasn’t before, this volume has sealed the deal. I loved everything about her this volume. From her meeting Salem and obviously thinking “Oh hell no.” to her skipping through a field of death showing Prometheus how stealing fire from the gods is supposed to be done. She is the most strongly characterized character in the whole show (barring possibly Torchwick himself) and she doesn’t even speak. Aaand now she’s left Remanent along with Team RWBY. I did predict back before Volume 4 started that Neo would ultimately end up teaming up with Ruby and company. It was really a just-for-fun prediction. Buuut….

Well I guess there’s nothing left to talk about except the ending. I do admit, I was a little panicked when Yang took the plunge. I don’t pay attention to any of the official social media or news surrounding RWBY. Stuff like that usually ruins a show for me. So I was worried that maybe Barbara had decided to leave the cast. But then Ruby and Blake fell off too, and I was like, “Ah. This is what we’re doing.”

But what’s going to happen to Team RWBY? I can tell you what I hope’s going to happen. I think it’s time for Team RWBY to get a power up. Maybe it’s time for some intense training in a world removed from Remanent à la the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball Z? My dream scenario is they spend a year or two or three doing something and then make it back to Remnant to find only a few days have passed. But we’ll see. All I know is I’m excited. In my opinion, the second half of Volume 8 was just the shot in the arm RWBY needed. I’m really looking forward to whatever comes next in a way that I haven’t in quite a while.

#RWBY #Live Blogging #Volume 8 #Spoilers

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sunnysunsins · 4 years ago

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RWBY volume 8 opening analysis. Obv, spoilers

Ok, so. Imma do what I do best: overanalyze the shit out of every frame i find interesting. AGAIN SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

We start off with Then-Now cut of Mantle and Atlas being overrun by Grimm. Nothing new here. Then we have our girls with their past selves.

Interesting things: while RWB are prepared to fight (with Ruby being confident, Weiss - careful and Blake - serious), Yang is just hugging her arm with a smile. Also notice the glowing dots around them. I’ll bring it up later We also have that effect with Ironwood and Atlas

Which burns to shit as that light in Iron’s eyes is gone. Also small detail, but note that Atlas starts to burn as Clover’s hand is shown.

Clover let’s go of his pin

And it shows the AceOps. Elm is serious

Vine is praying

Marrow is sad and remorseful

And Harriet is pissed. And note how she shares her shot with a sullen Qrow. If i may throw some bullshit, i have two thoughts: 1.Harriet was close friends with Clover. 2.She is going to take his place as the leader of AceOps

But back to Qrow. He is offered a hand by Robyn

And he takes it, both wearing serious looks.

Remember that Robyn needs to shake a person’s hand to activate her semblance. Maybe she used it and knows that Qrow isn’t lying about Tyrian killing Clover.

And now we got The Boi.

In a cage, tormented by Grimm. Some have said it could be an illusion created by Emerald, but honestly I want this to be literal. Mostly because it will be a great way to develop Oscar. And it also remind’s me of “It’s Venomous” by @shadowsnowdapple and it’s always a great thing.

Oooo spoopy Mommy Salami. Imagine she really CAN grow wings tho! Also her caging and intimidating Oscar is just- everything I wanted, honestly.

Next we see Jaune. Notice how his sword splits the screen in the middle

And when the camera pulls back, we see why - Ren and Nora

Ren looks back at her with a sad look

And she does the same, but unlike him, she turns completely -

And the pink lightning crosses her eyes along with the snowstorm. As we know, Nora was supposed to have her backstory in vol.7, but it got pushed back. While lightning is her power, it is also in the skillset of the maidens. And notice how the snowstorm picked up when the lightning crossed the screen. I am a strong believer that “Fria is Nora’s grandmother” theory is still possible.

Next we have the Schneesters. They walk across the SDC snowflake like preparing for a duel.

Winter with her old clothes - passes Weiss - new clothes

She looks at Weiss with seriousness and maybe anger -

And as they are back to back, she drops the act and let’s sadness and maybe remorse show

Whitley is worried, Willow is just sad

And the SDC logo shatters, giving rise to Salem and her army of Grimm. Funny how it was Jackass and his stupidity that let Salem get into Atlas without much of a problem.

I find it interesting how both Salem AND Ironwood are Queens in this chess match

Watts is a smiling motherfucker. I couldn’t find any easter eggs on his screen

And his reflection turns into Pietro(s). While he is working, his reflection is worried about Penny

And she still tries to come to terms with her being the Winter Maiden

And as the glass shatters, one Penny is trying to calm herself, while the other is worried, looking for something offscreen. We will get to this later

Next is a single snowflake landing on Ren’s palm

That turns into a pink petal, color similar to Nora’s

Ren holds it with a sad/determined look as Jaune comforts him

The Mantle Squad is here. Team JOYRide ready for action

Another petal floats by

And Nora tries to catch it

But can’t.

But hey, the Amity Squad is also here!

Everyone looks onto the 3 tasks at hand: protect Mantle, get Amity up and running and get Salem out of here. Also, I love the composition of this shot with dawn sky transitioning into red clouds around Grimm

And notice how when the squad is ready to fight, Penny floats up and turns to us, hovering under Amity with her blades out. Remember that too

Ruby and Yang nod to each other

And get to working on the Grimm.

Nothing to see in the fight.

But then Cinder walks by, taking a casual stroll through the frozen in time fight

Neo is not amused at all (BACKSTAB BACKSTAB BACKSTAB)

Emerald raises her hand to great Cinder, but get’s ignored

And she doesn’t like that.

Cinder get’s tormented by her grimm arm, with solemn Emerald in the background

From Cinder’s fire come our other bad guys.

Hazel looks sad... with his weirdass muscles and weirdass clothes.....

Tyrian is always a delight

Mercury looks like he’s about to drop the thiccest diss track

And THICC indeed

Oh my queen~ I get why Ozma wanted to smash even after she fell into a lake of bleach

And nice contrast of her red eyes with the Relic’s blue glow

And they BOTH have smoke trailing out of them! Could this be the Staff also has a being inside it?

Whatever it is, it makes Ruby’s eyes turn brown in this shot

Or it’s just the sunrise, lol

Notice how her scythe split the party into the two squads. ALSO NOTICE WHO ISN’T IN THIS SHOT. (I’m getting to her, just wait a bit)

The ground breaks

And the girls fall into abyss, reminiscent of Volume 3 opening

AND the fall into the motherfucking pool of Light that Salem got dunked in by the gods

Notice how the waves on Ruby’s face are the same as what Salem had. And also notice those glowing dots that i mentioned at the very beginning

Ruby is reaching for the Staff

But a certain grimm hand pulls her back. The only hand with 5 fingers. Remember in volume 6 Cinder fell into a lake below the Haven vault? Also I’d like to point out that she gently pulls Ruby’s hand away. Seriously, look at it in the op! She doesn’t grab her and tries to rip her arm off. She just takes her hand like “no, don’t do it.” and gently holds it back while all the other grimm arms reach up towards the staff. And then we have two messages:

And, on the contrary:

And all of this is interwoven with those sketchy images:

The bloodhound grimm that Salem sent after Oscar

Penny being hacked. Come on, this one is obvious. And i did say to keep in mind some other sus scenes with her.

And as the weapons fall...

Only one remains standing.

#rwby volume 8 spoilers #rwby spoilers #rwby opening #rwby volume 8 #rwby speculation #rwby analysis #rwby theory

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texasthegreatdestroyer · 4 years ago

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Just some theories and critcisms that I have the the recent two volumes.

Probably to start off from the beginning, Volume 7 was... interesting the say the least. Not that I hated it, because I didn't, I enjoyed many of the characters that they introduced to us, as well as I kinda enjoyed Penny making a come back, however I do have gripes about that, but I'll get into it a little further down the road. There was always one issue that I had with 7, and admitedly, it ruined one of the characters for me. Clover. A little bit of back story, when I first started watching 7, and Clover was properly introduced in the Dust Minds with Qrow, and the phrase "My semblance is good fortune." came out of his mouth, I instantly hated him, and for 2 main reasons. I knew the shippers were going to go crazy about it, and I just hated the potential connotations that came with it. I don't know about everyone else, but I love good and propper character growth. I was gonna be kinda pissy if they spent a whole volume trying to build Qrow's character up, only to solve his whole character arc by making his depression magically go poof with friendship, and that friend having a semblance to combat his own. Not matter what people want to believe, that's not good character growth. Genuinely sit down and think of the message behind that. It might as well be implying that if you can find that one person who builds you up, all of your problems will go away, and speaking from real life experience, it is not a good idea to have your happiness revolve around a singular person, because you never know when that person can back stab you, or just kick rocks.

What really broke my heart is that it took RT killing him off for me to actually take a deep look at Clover as a character for me to realize that I actually like him as a character, I just hated how they used him for plot device towards Qrow's developement. As much as I now like Clover, I'm glad that RT killed him off, because in the long run, it was better off that way for Qrow's sake, and again, the implications of their friend ship aren't entirely healthy, and is kind of ignorant to how much of an issue things like depression is. That shit doesn't just go away just because a person is introduced into the mix. In part it's also why I don't like Fair Game as a ship, because while cute in concept, it gets boring with a lot of the content that get's produced as it's mostly happy, cute, good times. It lacks in any real complexity because it's all honestly just cookie cutter romance, and it's not really all that fun to take in. In addition to that, the main issues I had mentioned before come into play. The idea that one person is so perfect while the other is fucked up in the head, that the fucked up one is heavily emotionally reliant on the other which is in fact not a healthy relationship for either member, and it would be terrifying to see how Qrow would pull himself together if he's even able to, in a scenario where they were long time romantic partners, and suddenly Clover just up and kicked rocks, or the relationship fell a part. In all honesty, it would potentially just destroy him. In general, I just think the lucky semblance thing was a dumb idea all together. I see why they did it in the grand scheme of things, but it annoyed me.

Then of course there's Robin. Let's be real, her semblance is story wrecking levels of broken. Like come on RT. Lie Detector semblance??? Really??? That is a power no mortal should ever have, and there's so many times that Robin could have broken the whole ass story just with the touch of another person's hand. (And no, just because Harriet didn't take her hand in Vol. 8 doesn't make the semblance concept any less stupid. If anything, it just makes it worse, because it shows that Harriet can't be trusted to act rationally in a situation she should realistically be able to act diplomatically towards. Grief is not an excuse when you're on the job.) I have the same issues with her that I had with Clover, it's that her semblance is damn near unneccessary.

Now to go into Volume 8, but not before giving a genuine criticism towards the whole series of RWBY. Why is it that the majority of the antagonistic characters have tragic back stories. Roman Torchwick was the only one who didn't have that sort of back story, and he wasn't even the main set of antags. Then of course there's Neo, but what good does that actually do when that's exactly what her future drives end up being is the tragic tale of her losing a close friend and associate. With Cinder, they pulled no punches, and oh my god, the song that goes with it. Like my god RT, could you slap the veiwers any harder with your dick obviousness? I hate that they gave easily the 2nd most fucked up character a sob story. It wasn't neccessary. The only good thing about it was when Wattz used her tragic past against her to put her in her place. There's no need to humanize someone who is so driven by hatred like that, as she's done so much fucked up shit to the main cast of characters that most if not all people wouldn't bat an eyelash at her, because it doesn't change her decision to intentionally be sadistic. And while on the topic of a Maiden, let's move to another. Penny. Volume 8 did her dirty. I'm all for bringing a character back, and I'm all for killing off a character for plot purpose, but the two don't fucking mix. Penny's death was redundant and unneccessary. What was the point of giving her a human body if she was just going to die within that same day? What was the point of bringing her back again if she was just going to die? Again? There's two routs RT should have taken. Either they should have killed her vol. 3 and had her stay dead, or she shouldn't have died in vol. 3, continued on as normal, and only then should she have died in vol. 8. Option number 2 is the ladder. I get what RT was trying to do with Penny's death, and I think it was a good concept, but god damn, this is Dragon Ball, we don't need redundant, pointless deaths. At least in vol. 8, there was a purpose behind Penny's death, but in vol. 3, Penny's death was more so unneccessary, and was only used to be a maryr for Ruby's cause. In fairness to them, you can't really expect them to fix what they had done years ago, but with full knowledge that this is what their plot meant they would have to do, they should have reconsidered the handing of their events for either Vol. 8, or both Vol 8 and 7 by removing Penny from it entirely.

Some additional criticisms that don't hold a lot of weight in the over all quality of the show, and more just some missed opportunities. Okay, so remember that whole speil Nora went on about having to find herself before she could be with Ren? Yeeeeeah, so why was it again that Jean had to be the one to fall into the abyss and not Nora or Ren??? Just putting that out there. If Nora and Ren needed to be seperate long enough for Nora to figure herself out, there's no real reason that they couldn't act on this. Because now instead, they're going to have to lean on each other even more so when news comes to them that the majority of their friends just got fucking dusted, and so they'll most likely be grieving together under the pretences that their friends are dead. Speaking of the abyss, fan theory time.

From what we've seen of this abyss that everyone has fallen into, it seems to be a fairly habitable pocket demention. With enough work, a civilization could possibly grow there. Where am I going with this? Well what do we know about Salem? She's a force to be reckoned with who could very potentially kill off the whole world with or without the help of the gods. We also know that she's immortal and cannot be killed. That doesn't however mean she can't be stopped. That's where the pocket demension comes into play. How do you fight off an immortal, blood thirsty, angry ex wife? By taking away everything she has to destroy in her path. You can't cause a mass genocide if there's no one to kill. And so that's where the pocket demension comes into play. What if that's how they stop Salem? By just leaving Remnant behind completely? They could take the staff back, and move all of Remnant's population into this dimension, and start new. In addition to that, they would need to take the staff of creation with them, meaning so much for collecting all four relics to blow up the planet. Now of course, there are some flaws with this theory, mainly in regards to carrying capacity of the area around them, rather or not the area is truly as inhabitable as it appears, and how safe the it actually is to live there. It's just more fodder for thought. What is RT planning with this pocket demension? Why are they so excited about Vol. 9 in regards to this? I'm really interested in how they're going about this, and hopefully the do a good job with it.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts on RWBY so far. Hopefully Vol. 9 does make up for the haphazard ending that was Vol. 8

#rwby spoilers

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hypeathon · 7 years ago

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RWBY Animators Spotlight #1: Joel Mann & Harley Dwortz

*Last Updated May 6th, 2019

This is a personal small project I’ve considered doing, inspired by The Canipa Effect’s Animator/Studio Spotlight videos & AnimeAjay’s Dragon Ball Super Animation Supervisors mini-series. I’ve spent a few months researching animators that have worked on the 3-D anime-inspired webseries, RWBY for a while out of desire to acknowledge and better appreciate what they’ve worked on. And as of this post, I decided to take the plunge and make a blog post using info from a combination of tweets from animators, con panel videos, blu-ray/dvd audio commentaries, behind-the-scene videos, and demo reels.

Expect some variation between posts, but the general structure will feature a brief mention of when each animator got involved in the show, an interpretation of their scenes and styles while partially mentioning the 12 principles of animation as a frame of reference, a personal comparison between certain Japanese animators (since many of RWBY’s Production staff take inspiration from anime and are anime fans, I’d figure why not do this), a list of scenes and shots that were either confirmed they worked on or can be presumed they did upon observation (and I could be wrong as to which scenes some animators did) and a demo reel of each animator. Since I’m still new to the idea of making blogs, I have no idea what kind of attention this will get if it gets any at all. Hopefully, people will like it, maybe learn a thing or two. Anyway’s let’s get started!

Joel Mann

To kick-off this series of RWBY animator spotlights, we’ll start with Co-Lead animator of RWBY from volume 3 onward, Joel Mann.

Joel’s time working on RWBY at Rooster teeth started during volume 2 with one of his first scenes being Cinder, Emerald, & Mercury’s meeting in their dorm room, in chapter 5. It’s throughout most of volume 2 that he spent time on interestingly big scenes due to either the importance of said-scene or the challenges doing so. Moments such as Ozpin’s speech in Volume 2 were what fell into the former, where Joel studied footage of speech performances and listened to the audio track for Ozpin so frequently that by the time he did motion capture, he had it memorized. And then moments like the students dancing together at the ballroom in chapter 6 of the same volume fell into the latter of being really challenging. Considering Volume 2 was the first time he did serious animation in a couple of years (as confirmed in the vol 2 blu-ray animators audio commentary), his character acting turned out pretty decently.

Since then, he has either spent timing doing motion capture as characters like Tyrian or spends time on action sequences. The first fight he got to animate was Team RWBY & Team JNPR fighting off every Grimm in Beacon in Chapter 12 and it was one of the rare occasions where fight sequences were not largely done by either Monty Oum or Shane Newville (though the former did animate the Team CFVY part). And by volume 3, he would become co-lead animator, sharing the position mainly with animator Dustin Matthews. Since then, his traits with animating fight scenes have started to fully mold. From the Qrow vs Winter fight to Ruby vs Neo & Torchwick to Weiss & Blake vs the Atlessian Knights & the White Fang to Ozpin and Cinder’s face-off (the latter two he was given a week to do each), he increasingly pushed the envelope of squash & stretch and staging, the former animation principle he utilizes on characters to create a zipping, flashy speed. Joel only goes further on the exaggeration by the volume 4 Character Short and Chapter 1 of Volume 4, specifically with Ruby’s semblance..

In terms of the latter principle, staging, this can be seen when characters in Joel’s sequences are making various stances, to the point where they sometimes pause for a split-second. This combination of staging and squash-&-stretch are what have made the bulk of how Joel has approached dynamism into action he has animated, though this has garnered mixed feedback from the fan base. Some have heavily praised him strongly by even mistakenly assuming he “worked closely with Monty”, which was hardly ever the case while others have criticized him for not resembling the way Monty animated enough and being too “stop-&-go” or having characters “teleport” too much. Ignoring the fact it’s in an animator’s nature as essentially an artist to possess and develop his/her own identity when approaching a sequence, something Monty Oum himself was always for, Joel has simply been honing his craft the way he would feel makes sense. When he has characters do certain stances or poses, it leaves a memory in the viewer’s eye whether it’s Ruby making hang time while having her feet planted on the bottom end of the sickle part of her weapon or making a quick sliding rotation as she lands before stopping or Ren staying crouched onto the Petra Gigas’s arm before jumping back and back flipping. Best case scenario, you get something like the wide-angle shot in the volume 5 Weiss Character short where Weiss both swiftly and elegantly lunges at each and every Beowulf.

Of all the animators to compare him to in the anime industry, his works come off similar to Arifumi Imai, who’s known to contributing scenes in shows like Attack on Titan, One-Punch Man and Sengoku Basara. Imai, like Joel Mann, uses a lot of zipping and trails through flames, smoke, smears or other visual effects, as well as exaggerating the human body to an absurd but effective degree (yes, that guy cart-wheeled the horse he mounted on). Another example would be animator, Masayuki Kunihiro, who has consistently been working on anime projects from studio Ufotable such as Tales of Zestiria the X, Fate/Zero, Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works and God Eater. As one could see from those examples, Kunihiro shares that sense of staging through extreme poses and stances before having characters strike and lunge with that sense of distortion found in squash and stretch.

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Here are a list of confirmed/presumed scenes Joel Mann worked on:

Cinder talking with Mercury & Emerald about Pyrrha - Vol 2, Ch 5

Team RWBY at the dance - Vol 2, Ch 6

Ozpin’s speech - Vol 2, Ch 8

Ozpin approving Team RWBY’s Search & Destroy mission request - Vol 2, Ch 8

Weiss, Blake & Yang’s discussion at the campfire - Vol 2, Ch 10

Team RWBY & JNPR fighting off the Grimm at Beacon - Vol 2, Ch 12

Parts of Qrow vs Winter fight - Vol 3, Ch 3

Part of the Cinder, Emerald and Mercury vs Amber fight Scene - Vol 3, Ch 7

Weiss and Blake vs Atlessian knights and White Fang - Vol 3, Ch 10

In the Volume 3 blu-ray/dvd Director’s Audio Commentary, Kerry Shawcross and Miles Luna referred to Joel’s time working on this scene as, “the Joel effect”, since he did this scene within a week.

Majority of the Ruby vs Torchwick and Neo fight - Vol 3, Ch 11

Between the Volume 3 audio commentaries, Gray said about 10% of the fight was animated by Monty whereas Joel said the Ruby vs Neo parts were what Monty Oum did.

At least a third of Joel’s time spent animating the fight were manually applying hair and clothing physics in every shot. This was a challenge due the setting being windy in the sky.

Ozpin vs Cinder - Vol 3, Ch 12

Ruby slaying each Beowulf (presumed) - Vol 4 Ruby Character Short

Ruby fighting the Beringel until she fell through the collapsing roof (presumed) - Vol 4 Ruby Character Short

Provided mo-cap of the Beringel using child crutches

Team RNJR counterattacking the Petra Gigas after Jaune lays out his plan (presumed) - Vol 4. Ch 1

Part of the Qrow vs Tyrian fight - Vol 4, Ch 7

Wide-angle shot of Weiss striking each Beowulf and sprouting icicles from the ground - Vol 5 Weiss Character Short

Yang clashing fists with the Ursa and breaking its arm (presumed) - Vol 5 Yang Character Short

Part of Raven vs Cinder fight - Vol 5, Ch 13

Harley Dwortz

Next on the animator spotlight is Harley Dwortz. Having been involved in Rooster Teeth animated projects since Red vs Blue season 10, Harley was one of the first animators brought on during volume 1. When fans look back at volumes 1 & 2, they tend to refer Monty Oum’s own fight sequences or scenes that match that presentation from certain other animators. That may be what made the characters introduced to the audience what they were in combat, but animators like Harley brought out everything else about the characters behavioral-wise. It’s in such non-action scenes where Harley shines as an animator.

When Monty, Miles, and Kerry developed and fleshed out the story and forged volume 1′s script between June 2012 and April 2013, they established various traits about the the main cast such as Weiss and Blake preferring to drink coffee and tea respectively and Yang being sensitive about others messing with her hair. However, animators such as Harley Dwortz added a lot of expression to whichever characters they animated. This is most evident with Weiss Schnee, who has an especially girly and sassy body language that Harley puts forth a lot of thought into in her assigned sequences. In chapter 7, as janky and rough the motion capture was, the idea both Weiss and Ruby’s attitudes as they bicker with each other is made evident from the way Weiss walks in response to being told she’s bossy. In chapter 8, Weiss emotes an exaggerated distress as she falls which then leads to Jaune’s enthusiastic response as he seized the opportunity to rescue her. Even the team RWBY dorm room scene in chapter 2 of volume 2 brought forth both rather unusual and yet fairly appropriate character acting from Weiss between her thinking seriously while balancing on a chair to her shyly tip-toeing to recover and maintain her composure, a silly scene that required a bit of “trust” on Kerry Shawcross’s part.

She was even subject to praise by the late Monty Oum in the volume 2 blu-ray directors audio commentary, feeling encouraged to improve the rigging or virtual skeletons to put simply on the characters. This even extended to her adding animation tricks in the more limited Poser software that Monty himself never thought of, such as Neptune’s head-shaking in chapter 4 of volume 2 and Ruby’s arm flailing as she got the choke hold from Yang in chapter 7 of the same volume. Harley goes that extra mile with expressing the right gestures for the right characters, whether it’s Pyrrha frantically moving back and forth to guide Jaune who clings on to a Deathstalker, Neptune being moved around by Ruby while smiling and being still like a cardboard standee, Ruby being awkwardly fidgety when attempting to strike a conversation at her Mom’s grave or Ren and Nora’s rather out-of-sync waltz which follows with Penny’s rather adorable dance (which of course, got a laugh out of Miles Luna).

It’s worth putting into context why any of this matters. The character acting established by animators like Harley is what set the foundation for how these characters would be depicted in mixed media projects be it in manga installments or in Blazblue Cross Tag Battle. In the case of the latter, Weiss’s idle animation where she nonchalantly checks her nails came from something Harley herself did. This can even apply to animal characters like Zwei who was the first person to animate the character and according to Monty, she and animator Dustin Matthews previously worked on animating animals in The Sims 3: Pets Expansion. It doesn’t matter if it’s scenes from the earlier volumes or in the ones past the narrative time skip like Qrow and Raven’s meeting at the tavern or Ruby laughing at Jaune’s hoodie as her head inflates. Harley takes pride as an animator thinking about how to express each character, even when they’re just standing and talking.

Whenever she’s not preoccupied working on RWBY or Red vs Blue, this attention to character acting from her is also very present in every skit she has animated in RWBY Chibi. In the Shadow People skit in episode 5 of season 1, Harley gives Weiss an extra bounce in her steps which would seem too silly if the character models were more normally proportioned but make perfect sense as their super-deformed versions. Same goes for Ozpin in the Director Ozpin skit episode 1 of Season 2, where he shuffles his feet around as he walks like something out of a Charlie Brown cartoon. That’s not to say she constantly exaggerates in RWBY Chibi, as the focus is on making the animation believable and engaging in the context of the show’s aesthetic, be it the way Ozpin’s cheeks move as he whistles or the way Weiss’s ponytail slips off of Ruby’s hand.

Harley’s quirky and expressive animations would be comparable to certain animators that have done similar scenes in the popular, on-going, magical girl Precure anime franchise, namely animator Yuki Hayashi. You can watch Hayashi’s own scenes on mute with no context as to what the characters are talking about and still get a good grasp of their chemistry and personalities. He has also done some freelance work, animating in shows from other studios, including the popular, meme-worthy, dancing sequences in he ending theme of the first season of Blood Blockade Battlefront. Another animator known for great character acting is Norimitsu Suzuki. Although he’s known for bigger things like his smoothly drawn liquid, explosion and smoke effects and 3-D-like rotation, he is also great at animating characters express themselves. If you’ve seen an ending theme from a Studio Bones title like the 2003 version of Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater or Star Driver or the first ending theme in Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear-Card Arc, that’s where Suzuki’s knack for having characters walking, running, dancing or whatever other gestures is best seen.

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Here are a list of confirmed/presumed scenes Harley Dwortz worked on:

Ruby and Weiss arguing about each other’s personalities - Vol 1, Ch 7

Jaune holding on to the Deathstalker Grimm’s tail until he got flown to the sky - Vol 1, Ch 7

Jaune picking up Weiss as she falls but they both fall anyway - Vol 1, Ch 8

Weiss asking Blake what’s wrong and the girls discussing about the White Fang* - Vol 2, Ch 2

Harley mentioned how the part where Ruby, Weiss and Yang walked into the room was difficult because of how they weren’t really walking into the space they’re in. She had to stitch in mo-cap of walks together.

Animating Weiss zipping off the chair and back in position was also difficult due to the hair simulation on Poser only registering one character at a time and she used three Weiss models for each time she zipped across.

In the Volume 2 Director’s Audio Commentary, this is what Monty Oum and Kerry Shawcross had to say about Harley in this scene:

Monty: “She puts in that extra mile to put in like the asymmetry and like, she records her own face {Kerry: Yeah, she does.} and then acts the camera.” Kerry: “If you go look at her, for like, from her timelines, the end of it is just like her face, like, just shot at her desk. Of just like, her acting things out.” Monty: “I also, y'know, I, I, I, I’ve learned from watching them work on this stuff that I need to do a better job of like, making the rigs. Suddenly I’m in the animation commentary, make the rigs more capable (Miles chuckles.) of them to allow to do this kinda work because it’s like…”

Team RWBY going over their White Fang Investigation plan until Sun and Neptune interrupt - Vol 3, Ch 3

Ruby decides who Sun and Neptune can pair up with on the White Fang investigation - Vol 2, Ch 3

Harley, like the other animators, was given freedom on how she wanted to animate the scene and thus had Neptune frozen stiff and swaying when moved next to Yang. According to Kerry Shawcross in the Volume 2 Director’s Audio Commentary:

Kerry: We have a pretty big policy of, if an animator has an idea just like, just go ahead and just like rough it out, just like we’ll watch it, we’re, we’re probably gonna go with it. ‘Cause that was Harley when she was like “Can I make Neptune like, stiff when she pushes him?” And I was like “Yeah, absolutely you can.”

Jaune approaching Pyrrha in a dress and asking her to dance - Vol 2, Ch 7

Between all four of the Volume 2 dvd/blu-ray audio commentary tracks, It’s unclear whether she did the actual Team JNPR dance itself or if it was Monty Oum as the fandom presumes

Jaune mentioning to Pyrrha that he has 7 sisters - Vol 2, Ch 7

Part of Zwei’s introduction - Vol 2, Ch 8

Oobleck bonking the one White Fang member as they board the train - Vol 2, Ch 11

Ruby and Oobleck facing one of the Mechs - Vol 2, Ch 11

Ironwoods forces mowing down the Grimm at Beacon - Vol 2, Ch 12

Opening scene of Ruby at Summer’s grave - Vol 3, Ch 1

Sage Ayana and Dew Gayl’s brief bout - Vol 3, Ch 2

Scarlet and Neptune’s brief fight (with help of Carmichael Simon and another stunt coordinator) - Vol 3, Ch 2

Harley stated how unlike a non-fight scene where camera layout, prop and models are all set for her, in fight scenes have less information to go off of aside from how the modeling vaguely moves and thus animating can feel “nebulous” as she phrased it,

The latter-half of Weiss, Winter and Ruby’s conversation from the slap onward - Vol 3, Ch 3

Weiss & Winter’s conversation about her training - Vol 3, Ch 4

Yang and Neon talking before the match - Vol 3, Ch 5

Mo-cap for Neon - Vol 3, Ch 5

Pyrrha initially agreeing to being the Fall maiden - Vol 3, Ch 6

Opening scene where Salem and Team WTCH have their meeting - Vol 4, Ch 1

Team RNJR with the blacksmith - Vol 4, Ch 1

Weiss talking to her father in his office - Vol 4, Ch 2

Raven talking to Qrow about whether Salem has the relic - Vol 4, Ch 4

Weiss talking to Henry Marigold at the reception - Vol 4, Ch 6

Kid Ren and Nora hiding from the Nevermore until it leaves - Vol 4, Ch 10

Harley’s most recent Demo Reel:

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#rwby #rwby5 #rwby analysis #crwby #rwby6 #animators spotlight #animators #spotlight #joel mann #joel #mann #harley #dwortz #harley dwortz

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yangscowlick · 2 years ago

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That got dark. What a bummer. I’m excited for the unexpected detour in wonderland (was that Yggdrasil?). TLDR thoughts behind cut. VERY intrigued by Vol 9. I’m on this ride now and happy to be here. Remnant is such a fun playground to play in and I really love these characters. Im just glad I won’t have had to wait as long as y’all have!

I don’t think Cinder will ever win like that again. This was her victory lap before comeuppance. It *did* accomplish me respecting her as a villain again. I was bored of her by Volume 5 so at least there’s that.

So heroes hit rock bottom (on a personal level — they did save everyone else) and go on a detour before the final stage. Going to guess there is lots of reflection on what they’re fighting for (given the ‘girl who fell through the world’ story).

VERY excited that it will just be RWBY+J (and Neo? lol). The main protags got lost in the shuffle this volume, so I’m looking forward to a hopefully more focused volume like V6.

I’m sure others have noticed, but seems like most who fell are haunted by people who died (maybe why Neo also fell).

I think Salem is such an interesting Big Bad. Like, she’s on a convoluted suicide mission. She’s a petty ex in a millennia-long divorce. She was a victim of capricious gods once upon a time. She always wins as long as someone loses. Time is always on her side.

And now the elephant in the room: Penny. I just dont understand it. Why do that again. But, I can’t tell if it was sloppy or we just dont have all the pieces yet. (1) Like, if the message was “she finally got to choose” then that was an incredibly ill-advised, unsatisfying and downright offensive way to do that. So I really dont think that’s it. (2) Was it a nod to the initial reservation, that her coming back broke the rules, and she was always on borrowed time before the universe course-corrected? If so, I still dont get that because that is not a lesson Ruby and team needed to learn. They didn’t try to bring her back, Pietro did. (3) Was it just another shock value / cost of war death? Then why her, just as she felt the joys of life? Ugh. (4) Is she just on a different plane of rules? Am I just clinging to hope, or is there something there? She told Jaune to “trust her”, her aura/soul hasn’t been confined to one body, etc. Is she still “alive” within Winter? And why was her aura yellow/off-white during the maiden power transfer? That’s not her or Winter’s aura color but it is Jaune’s. Are there pieces we’re missing here, or am I just being foolish?

That said, “You chose nothing. This…was a gift.” was an incredible line and moment.

That Vol 8 finale.

#M watches RWBY #RWBY V8 #now im all caught up and can lurk tags

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blue-rose-89 · 7 years ago

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RWBY Vol 5 Chapter 11 (The more the Merrier)

Also known as the “Crap hits the fan” Episode.

What did we Learn.......

1. Qrow, RWY, JNR, and Osca-pin have arrived at Haven academy and thier suspicions of Lionheart are made clear to them and the audience. Lionheart has been on Salem’s side since day one and he’s been responsible for Cinder’s team entering the festival, throwing Amber under the bus (who else would’ve known about her whereabouts?), and killing most if not all the Huntsman and and Huntresses in Mistral. Remorseful as Leo may be I’m going be very surprised if everyone forgives him as if nothing happened. Remember that there’s a little girl out there that never going to see her mother again because of him.

2. Leo is a Lion Faunus. His weapon appears to be a shield that shoots out Dust combos.

3. According to Raven, Ruby inherited Summer’s unyielding optimism (”You sound just like your mother”).

For those of you who were hoping that Ruby’s idealism would be challenged at some point then you’ll find it in this scene. Ruby tried to do the “We’re here because of teamwork and you should join us.” speech on Raven and it doesn’t work. Whatever Ozpin did to Raven back when she was member of the Ozlumenati, Raven is not the strong and determined woman that Tai fell in love with. The Raven Branwen we’re seeing (at least right now because there’s definitely more to her than what we see on the the surface) is a cynical, selfish, hypocritical coward who will say anything that will help her sleep at night.

3. We get a couple of fights. We have:

-Cinder vs Jaune: The fight we’ve been wanting to see since the day Pyhrra was killed by this woman.

-Yang vs Mercury: Round 2

-Ruby vs Emerald: The not so Weiss vs Emerald fight we were hoping to see.

-Ren and Nora vs Hazel: The fight we saw in the intro

-Weiss vs Vernal: The fight in which Weiss proves that she’s more than just a part of Schnee family. She is Weiss “The Huntress” Schnee.

-Osca-pin vs Lionheart: The “fighting the traitor” fight

-Qrow vs Raven: The “you’re dead to me fight.” fight.

4. Emerald confirms that she sides with Cinder out of obligation when she saved her from the streets. I wonder if her loyalty towards Cinder will change if the Fall Maiden ends up abandoning her.

5. Cinder once again proves just how much of a horrible human she is during her fight with Jaune. She “forgets” who Jaune is. She taunts Jaune when she does “remember” him. She gets mad when Jaune lands a hit on her face. And to add more salt to the wound, she stabs Weiss just hurt him.

Cinder will not get redemption no matter how sad and sympathetic her backstory might be. She does terrible things to people because she can.

And that thing about Weiss.....

[See more under the cut]

Weiss Schnee is not going to die

Things seem bad right now but come on, guys. Do you honestly think they’re going to kill Weiss when:

1. She’s one of the main characters.

2. Team RWBY hasn’t been reunited yet. This volume has been building up for this reunion so wouldn’t killing Weiss be counter productive?

3. If we ever return to Atlas then there’s a chance that she’ll be at the centre of a subplot that revolves around her family. Don’t you want to see Weiss stick it to jerk-wad father and bratty brother?

If you thought that Vol 4 was a waste of time then can you can bet that Vol 5 will be an even bigger waste of time if Weisss die before you can resolve the plot threads I’ve mentioned above.

Again, calm down guys. Weiss is going to be fine. I’m sure that this will be the point where Jaune’s Semblance will be revealed to have some sort of healing ability and he’ll save her.

#rwby #rwby volume 5 #rwby vol 5 #rwby spoilers #rwby weiss #rwby ruby #rwby jaune #rwby raven #rwby cinder

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bridgyrose · 2 years ago

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Due to my utter loathing if Weiss' treatment in the latest volume I came up with this angst filled (to me) idea: Winter manages to save Weiss at the end of Vol 8, so she isn't there to support Ruby through her trauma and Blake and Yang are too busy beeing it up to notice. Anything you can make with this? Like a oneshot or something?

(getting this one out before the new episode because 1) I had ideas and 2) I dont want the next episode influencing how everything goes from here. Especially since Ruby is going to go through her identity crisis)

“I guess Weiss managed to make it, right?” Ruby asked with a weak smile. Her gaze shifted between Yang and Blake as she held her arm close to herself. “And if that’s the case, maybe she and Penny were able to keep Cinder at bay and the relic out of Salem’s hands.”

Yang nodded and relaxed a bit as she looked up at the sky. “If that’s the case, then we’ll need to find a way out of here and get back to her to help.” She paused and sighed. “Wherever here is…”

Ruby smiled nervously and moved Little from her head to her shoulder. Her mind still weighed heavy with the idea that she couldnt save Atlas in order to save the people, that an entire kingdom had to be destroyed and most of her team’s lives had to be “lost” in order to make sure Cinder couldnt win. And who was to say they could make it out of this place anyway? Maybe Yang had been right and they had died, which meant that if they were wrong…

“Ruby? Are you okay?”

Ruby started to snap out of her thoughts as she heard Blake’s voice and slowly nodded and started to walk forward. “We find a way to the tree and then we see where we can go from there, right? Should be easy enough.”

“Yeah but… we still dont know how to get there and our guide is a bit…” Blake looked over at the sleeping Little on Ruby’s shoulder. “Unreliable.”

“They’re not unreliable, they’re just tired. Its been a long journey for them and the same for us. We should find somewhere to rest.”

“I think I saw a cave when I was chasing that creature, maybe we can find it again,” Yang suggested.

Blake smiled and walked up next to Yang. “And then you can tell us more about that racoon that took your arm, right? It sounded a bit disarming.”

“Maybe once we find the rodent. Though you really think this is the Ever After?”

“Little did say that was what this place was called.”

The sound of Blake’s and Yang’s voices started to fade away as Ruby quietly followed behind them, catching small glimpses of the two trying to hold hands. Her heart ached with each step as she worried about Weiss and Penny, no longer believing that everything ended up working out in the end. What if they fell too and ended up somewhere else, somewhere worse? Or maybe they ended up getting killed while keeping the relic away from Cinder.

Ruby’s steps started to slow as she started to get lost in thought, once again being brought out of it by the sound of Yang’s and Blake’s voices.

“This is the bridge Little was talking about, right?” Yang asked.

Little stretched a bit as they woke and looked over to the bridge. “Yup, that’s the one! It’ll take us right over to the next acre and then we can find the Jinxy Peddlar. I’m sure he’ll still have what he took from Yang and maybe he can help us to the tree too.”

Blake looked over at LIttle curiously. “But you said you know the way to the tree, right?”

“I know the tree is that way,” Little said as she pointed towards the large tree. “But… this is actually the farthest I’ve been from my village. So… I dont actually know how to get there.”

“Then we keep following what we know from the book.” Ruby took a few steps towards the bridge and looked across to the other acre. “Alyx talked to Jinxy first, then the Red King, where she ended up with help to get to the tree. All we have to do is follow her footsteps and we’ll get home in no time.”

Yang looked over to Blake, then to Ruby. “And you’re sure this is a good idea? Even if we are in the Ever After, how do we know the Red King will help us?”

“We challenge him to a game like Alyx did and I’m sure he’ll help us when we beat him.”

Yang nodded and started to make her way across the bridge. “Arm first, then Red King. Shouldnt be too hard for us and then we can get home in no time!”

Ruby smiled a bit and started to follow after Yang, eyes already set on her goal. She paused for a moment as she caught a glint of light from a tree and made her way over, pausing when she recognized Myrtenaster caught on the branch of a tree. Her arms shook as she slowly plucked it off, the sky darkening overhead as she gently fingered the blade.

“Ruby, is everything okay?” Blake asked. “You’re starting to trail behind.”

Ruby didnt quite hear as thunder crashed above her, rain starting to pour down from the sky. With a slow breath, she slowly sheathed the rapier against her belt and the rain cleared up around her. She started to take a few more steps to catch up to Yang and Blake, watching them as she fell a bit behind on the way to the village.

The sky darkened as night fell and Ruby stared into the flames of the fire Blake had made as she held Weiss’s rapier close to her chest. They seemed to be no closer to the village Little had talked about or even the tree at the center of the Ever After, and any hope she had of seeing Weiss alive was starting to dwindle.

“I’m sure Weiss is fine,” Yang said as she put a hand to Ruby’s shoulder. “When we get home, we’ll see her again. I know it.”

“I… I know…” Ruby said as she slowly lowered the rapier to the ground. “But… what if everything we did was for nothing? What if Salem still ended up with the relic or if Penny and Weiss died? Everything we had done would’ve been for nothing and we’d be just as bad as Ironwood.”

“You dont mean that, Rubes. Look, everything will work out. We just need to keep strong and keep moving. We’ll get home and find a way to stop Salem.”

“That… doesnt matter if she ended up with the relic.” Ruby sighed and slowly laid down to sleep. “Nothing matters if Salem ends up destroying everything.”

“You should let her sleep, Yang,” Blake said as she stopped Yang from trying to comfort Ruby further. “Its been a long couple days for all of us and sleep would do us all some good.Give us time to think things over.”

Ruby curled up a bit as she watched Yang’s shadow pull away, silently wishing her sister would understand her. Of course she didnt really think she was like Ironwood, but it was hard to see otherwise. Everything in Atlas had gone wrong all because she made a call that she didnt see any other answers to. Cinder found out about their plan through the lamp, Ironwood tried to arrest them and nearly destroyed the kingdom to do so, and even if they did manage to save thousands, Atlas was still gone and she was to blame for it. And now, she wasnt even sure if Weiss or Penny had survived. And if they hadnt…

Ruby shook her head to get the thoughts out of her mind. No, they had to have survived. Everything had to have worked out.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Ruby, we have to go!”

Ruby stood frozen as she held Penny’s blade in her hands, no longer sure of anything. There wasnt any sign of Penny or Weiss anywhere in the Ever After so far, though Weiss never would’ve let her blade leave her side and if part of Floating Array was down here…

“Ruby!” Yang said as she placed a hand on her shoulder. “We need to get out of here!”

“R-right…” Ruby slowly tucked the piece of blade into her belt next to Myrtenaster, hand shaking as she did. Each step she took made her feet feel like they were being weighed down by lead, her heart pounding in her chest as she made her way forward and away from the village. Once she was far enough away, she pulled the green sword off her belt again and sat down as she looked over it and gently fingered it.

Yang sat down next to her and sighed. “Ruby, I’m sure she’s alive. We’ll get home and we’ll find her again, okay?”

Ruby nodded and wiped a tear from her eyes as she tried to push everything down again. “Blake, Alyx went to the Red King after getting her knife from Jinxy, right?”

“Yeah, and then from there, she met the curious cat, then the rusted knight, fought the jabberwalker, talked to the carpenter..” Blake sighed and looked out to a castle on a distant hill. “We’ve got a long way to go if we want to reach the tree by following her story.”

“Then we talk to the Red King.” Ruby placed the sword back onto her hip and started to walk forward again. “And we get to the tree as quickly as we can.” She turned her back towards her teammates and hid the sorrow she felt in her heart. She had to be okay for them, she had to lead them to the tree. Everything had to be okay.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Penny… didnt make it.”

Ruby’s heart nearly stopped as she heard those words from Jaune, still not quite believing that he had fallen too. And while he did mention that Weiss was saved from falling, it didnt make her feel any better that she nearly died because of her. Because of her choices.

Jaune sighed and started to mount Juniper. “If we hurry now, we can get to my village.”

“Your village?” Yang asked. “Arent we supposed to be looking for a way out?”

“We will, but… its going to take time. There isnt exactly a way out as far as I can tell-”

“What about the tree?” Blake motioned to the tree that towered over. “That’s how Alyx escaped.”

“You wanted to go to the tree?! The tree is death!” Jaune caught his tone rising and took a moment to try to breathe. “The tree isnt a way out, its death. Besides, you cant get to the tree. I’ve tried. Though, now that I think about it, I’m surprised you made it all the way here on your own.”

“Actually, we were getting help from the cat.”

“What cat?” Jaune asked gruffly.

“Oh there you are!” the Curious Cat said as he made his way to the group. “I thought I had lost you after the jabberwalkers attacked-”

“Leave us alone!” Jaune yelled.

Ruby practically flinched at Jaune’s outburst, finally starting to move again after hearing the news of Penny. Her arms shook as she reached for Myrtenaster and slowly clutched the hilt, her head still spinning from everything. The voices of her friends and teammates started to swirl around her head as they argued with the Curious Cat, her heart thumped in her chest. Finally, she had enough and finally spoke.

“Shut. Up.”

Everyone looked towards her, confused and worried. Yang tried to reach out, but was stopped as she started to walk away, arms shaking as she kept her hand on the hilt of Myrtenaster. Without another word, she raced off with her semblance in a flurry of petals, wanting to get away. She failed Penny, failed Atlas, nearly failed Weiss and all her teammates. She couldnt keep going, couldnt keep trying to make decisions if all they did was end up failing along the way.

Finally, Ruby stopped and leaned against a tree, fingers trying to dig into it as she cried.

“Ruby?” Little asked as she poked up from Ruby’s cloak. “Why did you run from your friends?”

“You should leave.”

“But Ruby-”

“If you stay with me, you’ll only end up hurt!” Ruby took a breath and sighed. “Penny and Atlas are gone because of me, Weiss was almost killed, and now I’m not even sure of who I am! What makes me think I was ever ready for any of this?”

“Ruby-”

“Just go!” Ruby yelled. Her eyes stayed on Little as they ran off and she dropped down against the tree she leaned against. She put a hand to her heart and clutched at it.

“I found you!” the curious cat said as they appeared through the trees and made their way to Ruby. “Your friends are worried about you. Maybe you should go back to them.”

“I… I dont want to be me anymore..” Ruby wiped a few tears away from her eyes and sighed. “All I’ve done is mess things up. I’ve failed to keep people safe, made things worse… I… I cant…”

The curious cat smiled and made their way onto Ruby’s lap. “Its okay, I’ll be you in your stead so you dont have to worry about this burden anymore.”

“What-” Ruby screamed as she felt the cat’s claws push through her aura and start to sink into her, her arms going numb. She couldnt feel her body anymore, almost as if she was being pressed out of it as the cat sank further and further into her. “W-What are you doing?!”

“Dont worry, my lost little huntress, I’m giving you what you want. You dont have to worry about being yourself anymore and I’ll take your place. All you have to do is take mine.”

Ruby felt herself pushed out of her body, powerless to stop the cat as it finished sinking into her. The cat’s voice floated around in her mind as she watched her body pick itself up and grin with the same sharp teeth the cat had.

“And I’ll make sure they all make it home. Eventually.”

#ruby rose #rwby ruby rose #blake belladonna #yang xiao long #curious cat #rwby curious cat #little #rwby little #drabbles #angsty drabbles #you asked for angst #you may have your angst #rwby

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yang-gang · 8 years ago

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Top Ten in my recent Beaconship

‘

Got bored so thought I’d fill out a new beaconship (havent done so in a while)

So for fun I’ll post my top ten and give thoughts on what got them there (•‿-) (warning long post)

#10

Nora Valkyrie

No surprise, she’s probably in many people’s top ten. When I first saw her in vol 1 I assumed she would be an annoying character but boy was I proved wrong. To me she is crazy, funny and adorable - very entertaining. Plus her past and relationship with Ren has to be one of the most tragic yet sweetest thing ever.

So next..

Raven Branwen

I’m quite surprised here too. Little is explained about Raven in the show but I think that’s what can make her very very intriguing. Her character and background can be completely malleable so the audience can paint many different opinions about her. She also looks like a genuine bad-ass who would most likely annihilate you in a fight. Her colour scheme is provoking and she may or may not turn face in the future of the show...that’s if she proves herself not to be worst mom of the year..

Onwards then..

Ruby Rose

To my credit, she was going to be higher but I pulled a last minute decider over number 7 over her. I like Ruby a lot but she may end up being one of those characters who are always out shined by the other cast for what ever reason. I do like her flaws though; inexperienced, naive and childish at times but she has the desire and motivation to push everyone around to strive better. She just needs some solid development right now.

Velvet Scarlatina

^ Velvet: “Sorry to steal the spotlight from you Ruby..”

I’m not sure about most fans but I adore this girl. I really felt sorry for her after being bullied by Cardin. She is so sweet and pure it makes my sugar levels rise. Plus she has what might be the most powerful semblence/weapon/box/??? of all time. She went from zero to badass in one episode. I know she may not be in many top ten but I would like to put her there for that reason.

Emerald Sustrai

The queen of mixed signals. I really like Emerald. She’s definitely not a black&white character at all. Her motivations seem to be fuelled by her need for Cinder’s approval (maybe more?) but I can sense a heroic yet troubled arc stemming from her in future. I love her colour schemes, her weapons and her eyes. Also her semblance is broken af.

Ok top 5..

Winter Schnee

There’s something about authoritative, stern and assertive characters that appeal to me. Her cold essence that sees her live up to her name and I just love how she is in the show. Her relationship with Weiss is going to be great to see more screen time of and she fights like a genuine bad-ass: her semblance, her weapons and graceful fighting style, her voice and tonality, her looks, all of it - is the reason she is my top 5.

Coco Adel

One of the best looking/stylish characters in the show. She is too cool. One of my favourite things about her is her nonchalant way of dealing with grim as if they were nothing. I also love how laid back she is and very confident with herself and her team. She would be great to hang out/party with. I hope to god we see more of her and velvet in RWBY because she is too good to keep off screen - more laid back one liners, more bullets, more coffee, more Coco Adel please. ♥‿♥

Weiss Schnee

Weiss Schnee is number three. I fell in love with her character during vol 2 after she showed how great of a team mate she can be. In vol 3 she improved and became even better to her team mates. Vol 4 and is a legitimate sweetheart and I root for her even more now. As a character, she is quite possible the best developed thus far and it shows just how far she has come in her journey. From a cold hearted, stuck up rich heiress to a warmer, team oriented best friend to team RWBY who will do whatever she can to be a great team mate. Best character of vol 4 imo.

Also I love her 1v1 type duel fighting style with her Myrtenaster fencing sword. Her ability to summon is also great and i can’t wait to see Winter’s face when she summons the knight to help her fight.

It shouldn’t come as a shock who #2 and 1 are so I’ll summarise it with this.

They both procure spots 1 and 2 simultaneously because they both are my favourite characters.

Let’s be honest Yang may be the most popular character in the show.

I loved Yang from the get go. Her style, her nature, her confident and slightly cocky attitude. Loved it all. Her fighting style is also bad-ass and my favourite in the whole show. Then when vol 2 hit and the scene above happened, I was legitimately as close to loving a fictional character as a real person as I could get. She is the most adorable thing ever. Her semblance is also strong and helpful too and definitely a good learning curve if she expects to beat Adam in another fight.

Blake also became my favourite slowly, over time. She is definitely a deep and tragic character. Her past is one big ghost, always coming to haunt her. So as a result she keeps others away from getting close and she is always running away. However I can see deep down in the abyss is just an amazing, headstrong, motivated young woman who wants to genuinely rid the world of discrimination and hate. Her story is by far the most realistic with parallels to racism and self-destructive tendencies. It surprises me when the writers say she’s the hardest to write for. I actually believe she is quite easy as long as you make her consistent. We’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg of her so far. There’s more good and bad to come.

Oh yeah and they complete each other in so many different ways it’s ridiculous.

Bonus: With Yang and Blake both being my favourite it was only a matter of time before I saw the potential in a relationship between the two..then this happened..

and I was trauma welded to this ship for life.

There we have it.

If anyone has any of their own they’d love to share then go ahead I’d love to read them! Who are your top ten?

#nora valkyrie #raven branwen #ruby rose #velvet scarlatina #emerald sustrai #winter schnee #coco adel #weiss schnee #Blake Belladonna #yang xiao long #bumbleby #beaconship #bored #i never post enough so here #enjoy?

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kingakatsuki13-blog · 6 years ago

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RWBY: Fall for a Rose VOL 1

Chapter 2: Blood for Syrup Something was wrong with Cinder Fall. Everything had for the most part been proceeding as it had been planned. For the past week since their infiltration, Emerald and Mercury had been socializing with the students in order to not only gain their trust but also so that they may learn more of their strengths and weaknesses. They also began to pry around attempting to discover a way into the bowels of the school where the prizes they sought more than likely were held. Cinder, mostly confined herself within her team's shared room.

For hours she analyzed the data the duo sent her and adjusted the plan according to each new scrap of information she was given. She also made sure to add contingencies for any uncounted variables that could possibly, however unlikely, hinder or dismantle the entire operation. Much to her annoyance though, she wasn't able to concentrate on her own tasks as well as she normally would. Yes, she was able to do it but it took her far more concentration than she had expected. As she would work, almost most sporadically her thoughts would begin to drift and focus on a certain red-cloaked wearing young girl. As soon as the mental image of the smiling young student clouded her head, Cinder would spend long stretches of time agonizing over why she could not stop thinking of Ruby Rose. Their initial encounter was one of the briefest meetings Cinder had ever had with anyone in recent memory. The two other times she had run into Ruby were only slightly longer and even then there was very little the girl had said or done, aside from literally running into her again both times, to make Cinder so invested in her.

So why couldn't she stop thinking about her? What was it about her that had gained her near full attention? Perhaps, she was instinctually afraid of scythe wielder? Such an idea had originally been brushed aside but Cinder once more considered it seriously for several hours before once more dashing the idea. Cinder was not afraid of some petite fifteen year old. If not that, then maybe the girl held some form of power that Cinder was unknowingly drawn to. Again, she ridiculed the thought. What power could the girl possess that she'd ever want? Unless. No, the idea was too farfetched. Every answer and possibility she could come up with was more illogical or ridiculous than the one before. Ruby appeared to be a normal huntress in training, a peculiar one with potential for sure but a common one nonetheless.

"Cinder?"

Then what was it? What kept her mind from focusing on the most important mission of her young life? That kept her focused on the young red and black haired huntress that she barely even knew let alone had any information on? She was still waiting on Emerald and Mercury to discover something. She needed to know who the girl was. What about the young Rose that vexed her so. That made her think of her unique and beautiful silver eyes that looked at her with such innocence and happiness. That made her daydream of her pretty face sporting a small faint blush on those adorable cheeks on hers after she was scolded.

"Cinder?"

There was no clear answer. It could be many. True be told she hadn't felt something like this since the moment she meet Salem for the first time. The fear and intrigue that she felt once her mentor had laid eyes on her was something very similar to what she was feeling now. Only at that time, it was rather different. When she had met Salem, she couldn't stop thinking of her and the power she emitted. She wanted to learn more about what she was able to do and what the witch could offer her to fight back against the twisted and cruel world. While with Ruby she felt the need to learn more about her and that somehow the girl could…

"Cinder!"

The trance of thoughts that was holding the long black haired woman from the physical world was suddenly broken once she heard the voice of one of her followers. She turned her head towards Emerald as she sat on her bed. The short minty green haired woman along with Mercury gave her a concerned look.

"Are you alright Cinder? You seemed lost for a moment."

"Yeah, in fact, you've kinda seemed distracted for a few days now."

"...I'm fine I've just been...remembering things..." Cinder said while she stared at the floor for a small moment before she looked back to both Emerald and Mercury. "Have you found anything new to report?"

The silver-haired man gave a slick grin, "Think your gonna be really happy. We managed to find plenty of info on that team RWBY and their leader." He followed with a teasing pause to see how his boss would react at the fact they had finally garnered the information she had wished for near a week.

"Such as?" Cinder questioned with a tone that indicated she was not to be kept waiting on such information.

"W-Well the easiest to figure out was the Schnee brat," he began before reading from his scroll, "Seventeen years old, from Atlas, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. Her weapon of choice is a Multi-action dust rapier, able to make use of different forms of dust in combat. Her semblance like all Schnee is the use of glyphs and..."

"Whatever. She's the most obvious of them all. We'll discuss the Belladonna and the other one later. For now talk to me about their leader. Ruby Rose," Cinder commanded as she arose from her bed and sauntered to the window. The raven-haired beauty clasped her hands behind her back as she looked out over the school's courtyard, begrudgingly admiring the beauty of its architecture and landscape as well as peaceful presence it emitted.

Mercury in that moment turned to Emerald and gave a slight shrug before motioning to her to inform their boss of what they had discovered about the red and black haired girl. Emerald took out her own scroll and began to search for the notes pertaining the one her savior wished to know.

"Well?" the slightly irritated voice of Cinder sounded making both of them flinch. It also continued to make the terrible duo question why Cinder appeared to be fixated on a girl she simply bumped into randomly. Regardless, Emerald quickly found the notes she had compiled and began to read them aloud.

"Here Ma'am. Ruby Rose, leader of Team RWBY. Born on October 31st. 15 years old. Raised on the Island of Patch. Wields a high caliber sniper scythe. She is evidently the youngest student to have ever been accepted into Beacon Academy in its entire history..." Emerald continued to exude all the information they had discovered in Mercury and hers weeklong research. Cinder absorbed each particular piece of information that was revealed to her. Ruby was actually the half-sister of Yang, had a near obsession for cookies. She had a dog-named Zwei that she kept hidden in RWBY's dorm room. How, it was her team that had actually disrupted their allies, The White Fang's operations at the docks a few weeks prior. The woman who yearned to be a seasonal maiden listened to every little detail. When Emerald had ceased speaking did Cinder make a response.

"Fascinating...well done you two," she said as she continued to stare out over the courtyard. Her mind had already begun processing everything her minions had reported. She was searching for whatever it was that made Ruby cloud her thoughts.

Interestingly as she reviewed everything she realized she and Ruby had unknowingly crossed paths a few months before. It had been Ruby who had thwarted Roman Torchwick's dust heist those many weeks prior and it was she that Cinder had attacked to cover Roman and her's escape. Cinder unknowingly frowned at the information and wondered if perhaps that had been the reason for her odd interest. No, it wasn't that. Cinder continued to sift through the data until she was pulled from her thoughts once more.

"Ummm Cinder...maybe we could go down to the cafeteria? Do some observation of the other teams down there?" the mint-haired mental manipulator suggested.

She had been watching as Cinder contemplated the information of Ruby Rose. It frankly worried the tan skinned woman. In the few years, she had served her source of purpose, never had she seen her take such a sudden interest in a subject like the young Rose. Ever since their brief interaction, Cinder had been adamant on learning all there was to know about the scythe-wielder and to a lesser extent her team. She had appeared almost distracted by the thought of the young girl, something that almost made the dual sickle-wielding woman mad with jealousy. Even now, after being given all that information Cinder still seemed to be distracted and was obviously reviewing all the knowledge presented to her inside her nefarious mind. Thus she hoped she could now distract Cinder with something else and refocus her attention back to the overall mission.

"..." Cinder simply started at her protégé as she too slowly reminded herself of the end game.

"Yeah. Besides I'm freaking starving. Let's see what kind of food this posh place has for us today," Mercury blatantly commented, not understanding Emerald's true reason for the suggestion.

"...I think you have a good point Emerald, looking at the interactions between teams could help us to find any relationships that they may have with others. We could easily use such relationships to our advantage. Besides, I need to make more appearances…I can't continue to miss these routine activities, or I may begin to raise some suspicions," Cinder said to the red eyes young woman who couldn't help but nod at smile at the small recognition she received from her superior.The raven-haired woman than turned to Mercury with an annoyed look but appeased his simpleness, "And Mercury start thinking outside of your stomach for once."

"Hey, I can't gather information or kill anyone on an empty stomach."

------

"...I'm honestly still surprised at how well the quality of food is here," Cinder said.

Her lunch tray held a generously sized medium rare cooked steak, steaming carrots, fluffy mashed potatoes, a freshly baked slice of pie alongside some chocolate chip cookies and finally a glass of milk. With a slight incline of her head, Cinder, Emerald and Mercury walked through the cafeteria searching for an available table, preferably one away from the other teams.

"I know. Little brats are freaking spoiled," Emerald huffed, evidently bitter at how well off the students had it.

"Pft, why are you complaining about? Who cares if they get spoiled, this food is amazing," the silver-haired young man commented with an annoyed tone before taking a bite of his dessert cake.

"Seriously? You couldn't wait till we found a place to sit down before gorging yourself?"

"What? I'm hungry."

"When are you not hungry you sociopath?"

"Bite me klepto."

Cinder's right eyebrow twitched in annoyance at the incessant bickering between the two. The nefarious femme-fatale was about to order them to stop when she heard the unique and unmistakable sweet excited voice of someone call out to her.

"Cinder! Hey Cinder! Come here you guys we have free spots here!"

Cinder turned her head to stare at the origin of the voice and of course found none other than Ruby Rose. The very girl who had unwittingly been inconveniencing Cinder's thought process for several days. Said girl was sitting at a long table along with seven other students, all form of Beacon. It was easy to see she was sitting alongside her team as well as another group. This new quadrate integrated of a blonde goofy looking boy, a beautiful long red haired tall girl, a black-haired boy that had a pink strain within his dark locks and finally an orange haired girl, who seemed completely focused on eating what it looked like pancakes.

Without a moment's hesitation Cinder began to make her way over to the beckoning girl, quickly followed Emerald and Mercury. The former of which grew a scowl on her face when she once more saw the bubbly Ruby.

"Hello Ruby, it's nice to see you and your team again," Cinder said with a smile on her face as she and the others arrived at the table. Emerald took a seat next to the orange haired girl, who was fully devoted to devouring her pancakes, Mercury sat next to the blonde boy and Cinder had managed to squeeze in a spot next to Ruby. The young Rose seemed to be barely containing herself at the happiness of meeting Cinder once more and the fact that the sultry young woman was now sitting next to her. Making her equally excited was the idea that she would, at last, be able to ask her pantheon of questions to pyromancer.

"Hehe, same," she flashed a toothy smile, "Oh before I forget! This is team JNPR. Guys, this is Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury. We uhhh kinda met them the other day when I accidentally bumped into them."

Cinder gave a tiny giggle at the flustered state of Ruby as she recounted her own bumbling. She then listened as Team JNPR presented themselves to herself and her own team.

"My name is Jaune Arc from the Arc family...I-I'm the leader, nice to meet you," spoke the blonde boy, who to Cinder seemed rather unimpressive.

"Greetings, I'm Pyrrha Nikos, it's very nice to meet you all," the green-eyed young woman said in a gentle way.

The silent young man who sat beside her followed in the introductions, "I'm Ren, Lie Ren, a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

The remaining member of JNPR had just taken a rather large bite of her 'lunch' and with a full mouth greeted, "Ghi! I'mg Ngah Vhakmie!" As she spoke, some chewed bits of saliva-covered pancake flew onto the table causing Weiss, Emerald, and Blake to display faces of disgust whilst gagging.

"...Charmed to meet you all." Cinder replied with a weary smile."So, since you guys have been here for a week, how are you liking Beacon so far?" Yang asked to the new additions to their table, blatantly attempting to ignore the sickening display that was Nora's consumption of pancakes.

"It's a most impressive academy. Far grander and larger than Haven," Cinder replied before cutting her self a piece of her juicy steak and consuming it.

"Really?" Ruby peeped.

"Yes, little Rose. Granted there's only so much space Haven has given that it's built on a mountaintop."

"That's so cool!"

"…I suppose in some sense it is."

The Beacon teams then continued to press for more questions regarding the "exchange students," all clearly curious about life in Mistral and the other academy, save for Phyrra, who originated from Mistral. It was Ruby though that began to ask the more personal questions.

"So Cinder, I was curious but what's your story?"Cinder cocked her head a little at the inquiry before responding,

"My story?"

"Yeah. Like where in Mistral are you from? What's your family like?" Ruby asked eagerly awaiting the response.

"Oh. Well, I'm actually from a town in the northern regions near Argus. It's called Kuraikako."

"I know that town," Weiss exclaimed excitedly, "My father and the rest of Atlas have strong connections in that region."

Cinder grimly nodded, "Indeed. One the largest Dust mines in all of Remnant is situated right next to it and if I'm correct it's owned by your family, is it not?"

"It is and I've been trying to visit for ages. My sister informed me it is a place one must visit at least once in their life. It was constructed on the world's largest natural arch wasn't it?" Weiss asked, nearly as excited, as Ruby would normally be.

"That's right. It makes growing up really interesting when your entire town is situated about seven hundred feet above a massive river." Cinder commented.

"You live on the world's biggest natural bridge and you go to school on top of a mountain? That's so freaking awesome," Ruby chimed, her eyes being replaced with stars of wonder, "Tell me your parents are just as cool!"

"…My parents…" she paused, "...Well, not really. Unless you consider traveling merchants to be really cool."

"Well, that's…interesting," Weiss said, slightly disappointed at the fact her new acquaintance was not of Kuraikako's elite.

"It's a noble profession," Ren stated.

The other's grumbled their thoughts, and though Cinder could care less for the fabrication she had crafted as a backstory, Ruby of course did.

"Hey come on guys. Think about it they get to travel all over Remnant," Ruby exclaimed.

Cinder continued to behold the energetic girl with wonder.

"Hehe Rubes, huntsmen get to travel all over the world too," Yang chuckled. It was all too clear to the elder sister that her sibling had a unique interest in the black haired student and thus was trying not to offend her.

"Y-Yeah but…"

"It's fine Ruby. I'm fully aware that merchants are not the most exciting profession. Besides, my parents and I have rarely spent time together over the past several years. So it's fine," Cinder interjected.

"That's so sad to hear," Phyrra uttered.

Cinder turned her head to see the famed redhead with an empathetic expression upon her face. As her amber colored eyes darted around the table, she saw the others adopt similar faces. Cinder sighed, as she realized she had unwittingly created a pity party. If there was one thing Cinder despised most in the world, it was people looking down on her in any way. Be it through pity or arrogance, she hated it with a burning passion. Thus, she quickly resolved to turn the conversation away from herself and direct it towards the others.

"I wouldn't get choked up over it. My parent's and I have never really been that close, to begin with," she continued to build on the lie. She paused for a moment to let the information sink into the others, "Anyway, I think it's now my turn to ask all of you some questions."

"Yeah…Sounds fair after all we did kind of just blast you with all of ours," Jaune said sheepishly. He, like everyone, wanted to distance away from the awkwardness that was arising from the parental subject.

"Indeed."Cinder began her own inquiry into the various members of the two teams while Emerald and Mercury watched and ate their own lunches. To both of them, these students were just so annoying. All they had wished to do was to quietly east some food and do some discrete observations. But no, that annoying little Ruby Rose just had to spot and invite them over to sit with her and her friends. More than that, it continued to irk Emerald something fierce as Cinder continued to drift her gaze on to the energetic crimson-cloaked girl. All the servant of Fall could do though was to eat her meal and let Cinder do her interviews of the Beacon students, which luckily for them was giving them new information about each individual.The sultry woman stylized her questions around general topics while slipping in bits of bait to pry deeper intelligence about each of them. It worked quite well as she was able to get each one of them to unwittingly reveal their semblances, granted she had, in turn, had to tell them her own when they asked. She replied that she could simply create and control fire, which while a lie wasn't exactly far from the truth. Yet, one of her more interesting questions made even Emerald slightly curious as to its answer.

"Now if you don't mind me asking...why are you all here? What are you hoping to gain out of being huntsmen?"

The answers they received were quite diverse, some nobler than others, to which Cinder and Emerald mentally rolled their eyes at. Yang, of course, was simply interested in beating up monsters, Weiss was seeking to restore her family's name given how her father had tainted its reputation, Jaune similarly was interested in upholding his family name and to Cinder, they were just the same old excuses she had heard a dozen times over. Kill the Grimm, be a hero, restore some lost honor; it bored Cinder to no end, though of course, her face did not show it.

Only after everyone else had given their reason did she at last turn to the one who she most wanted to hear from, "And you Ruby? Why do you wish to be a huntsman?"

"M-Me?" the half-sister of Yang stuttered. Despite her bubbly nature, Ruby was evidently shy enough when she herself was under the spotlight. "Umm well…my parents were apparently incredible huntsmen and my Uncle Qrow is one of the coolest out there. I guess you could say I've always wanted to be like them. You know going out and just helping people and all that…Oh and I find the aspect of being a huntsman the coolest!"

Though Ruby's answer was similarly common, the tone in which she talked withheld some sadness to it as if she was hiding another part to her desire to be such a warrior. Regardless, she said nothing regarding honor, vengeance, glory or anything of such nature. Her desire was simple and innocent; a desire that drove Ruby forward. Cinder, while of course being intrigued by Ruby, still could not help but mentally scoff at the simplicity of her drive. Yet, because of it's simplicity and pureness Cinder strangely found herself once more curious, something that made her mind cry in frustration at the mystery Ruby presented.

As the conversation between Cinder and the Beacon teams continued, Mercury began to become increasingly bored and tired. He assumed no one would mind if he decided to take a quick nap upon the table. Pushing his tray of uneaten food away from his person, he lay his head upon its hard surface and closed his eyes. Unbeknownst to him, he had pushed his tray a little too hard and at an angle that had it smacking into the tray of pancakes that Nora was still consuming. The action caused both trays to spill over past the Valkyrie girl. Her eyes grew wide at the horror that unfolded in almost a slowed down motion. Never before had something so insulting transpired before her. Each fluffy, butter and syrup coated flapjack fell to the floor, where they flopped, tore or crumbled apart upon hitting the tiles. Her pancakes had been assassinated. Ren and the others around them gasped at the suddenness of what transpired, all except for Cinder and Emerald, the former whom just rose an eyebrow in curiosity. Like the head of a bird of prey, Nora's head snapped in the direction from where the rouge and violent tray that committed the unspeakable deed came from. Her turquoise eyes landed on the napping Mercury and immediately narrowed. Without a moment's hesitation, she grasped some fallen pancake within her mighty fist.

"Avenge yourself my delectable confection," she whispered to her lost love before flinging the cooked batter cake into the face of the undercover assassin.

"Ghaa!" the young silver haired man shouted in both surprise and anger at the feeling of something soft yet sticky smashing into his face and interrupting his attempt to take a relaxing little nap. "What the hell?" he questioned while he cleaned the pieces of pancake from his face and searched for the culprit of the assault. Only to find the answer once he looked at Nora.

The girl with a semblance of electricity raised both hands to air while looking up to the ceiling and cried out loud, "Your death has been avenged, my delicious friend!"Cinder looked at what transpired before her with a face that was slightly baffled but more so un-amused. Other students too took notice at the sudden outcry of both Mercury and Nora. The feeling of becoming the center of attention and feeling so many eyes upon them quickly made several members of the large group uncomfortable. The exception, of course, being Ren, who was had become desensitized to Nora's crazed antics along with Ruby, Yang and surprisingly Emerald. All three girls were giggling at how funny the scene was, especially for the former thief.Their light laughter along with the fury of being attacked with food, Mercury did not think twice before he went and grabbed the pie from Jaune's tray. Not missing a beat, the son of Black threw the pastry towards Nora before Jaune or Cinder could protest. Unfortunately for him and everyone else in the cafeteria, Nora was fully prepared for retaliation. Out of nowhere she pulled out an iron pole with a large stack of waffles skewered on the end and used the odd device to smash, the upcoming cake into many pieces that flew everywhere.

Almost everyone quickly shielded themselves with their trays as the pie pieces sprayed everywhere. Yang, however, was not so fortunate. She had been about to drink some juice when Mercury had struck back and Nora sent his revenge pie spraying everywhere. Said pieces of pie ended up hitting the Xiao Long in the face but more importantly, bits of the pie embedded themselves in her precious hair. This fact registered almost instantly with Yang. Her muscles began to tense, her eyes shifted from purple to blood red and a demonic aura began to enwrap her. The members of both RWBY and JNPR grew quite with their eyes filled with fear as they saw this.

"E-Emm...Yang a-are you okay?" Weiss asked, terror slowly etching itself into her face.

This quickly caught the attention of Cinder who also noticed that the faunus girl and team leader seemed to tremble of what was coming. She also picked up on that Phyrra and Jaune had begun to slowly raise their trays as shields once more.

"Yang...just...breathe in and try to not think about it. Just clear your mind and breathe," Blake said trying to calm Ruby's elder sister before chaos was unleashed.

At first, the words of Blake seemed to have some effect as Yang started to steady her breathing while her eyes transitioned back to purple. For a quick moment, the Beacon teams thought that everything was going to be fine, that was until till the long blonde haired huntress resumed her heavy breathing. Her breathing became quicker and harsher than before; her eyes once more became red but now glowed with her rage.

"N-Now Yang please don't…" Blake tried once more to reach her friend's conscious with words but was swiftly stopped. The sudden explosion of Yang's juice glass that she was holding signaled the shut down of the Belladonna's attempts. This once more got the attention of the other students, who all began to scuttle away as Yang's demonic aura reached new heights.

A single utterance sounded from somewhere in the near silent hall of eating that best summarized the feelings of the student populace over what was about to take place, "Oh no...not again."

As if in response to that remark, Ruby jumped on to other table and with both hands raised to her mouth, she shouted out, "Food Fight!"

Once Cinder heard those words from the red and black haired young huntress, she turned to leave when a loud crash sounded behind her. Her head spun back to find the table had been smashed into the ground, Yang standing at the epicenter from which the table had collapsed. Evidently, her punch had been so swift and powerful it created a temporary anti-gravity effect with several trays full of food that had been on the dinning platform. These platters stuffed with varying consumables seemed to float in the air before the now psychotically grinning Yang proceeded to punch them all in every direction. Cinder easily dodged the tin plate and its messy contents that were launched at her head. She proceeded to back up and stand against the wall away from the chaos that was unfolding. She took note of all the other students evacuating the premise and decided it would be wise for her team to follow suit. As she moved to gather her teammates, the nefarious woman growled in displeasure when she realized that one was already mixed up in the ridiculous bout.

The disciple of Salem watched as Yang launched herself forward to collide with Nora and Mercury. Having the momentum, Yang catapulted the three of them into several other tables causing more and debris and food to fly all over. At the same time, Ren tried to stop Ruby as she tried to back up her older sister. She came at him, tossing slices of pizza as he deflected each one with the large carrots he held. Meanwhile, Pyrrha and Jaune dueled with both Blake and Weiss. Jaune used a tray as his shield as Weiss assaulted him with her signature swordfish. Blake made use of an overly large turkey drumstick as she combated Phyrra's salami loaf thrusts. The sight of everyone fighting with food made Cinder feel disgusted. It was all so idiotic, so childish, and normally she would have despised every aspect of the mock fight. But looking at Ruby, seeing the joy-filled girl have fun, prevented Cinder from completely looking down upon the lively clash. In fact, it almost made the undercover villainess want to get involved.

Suddenly, Emerald appeared next to her master. She had somehow avoided the confrontation but was cleaning some pieces of food from her hair.

"Jeez what a mess these losers and Mercury have created," she stated before ducking as several watermelons zipped past and swiftly exploded behind them.

"S-sorry!" apologized Phyrra.

"… Maybe we should get Mercury and leave before someone gets here and we get caught up in this mess…Cinder?"

Cinder silently looked to her lackey as food flew in the air around them before returning her gaze to the fight of food raged in front of them. Her normally collected and mature mind had become bewildered as she watched both parties battle one another with their comical makeshift weapons all the while smiling and laughing. Even Mercury of all the sociopaths in Remnant looked to be enjoying himself as he kicked and threw various pastries at the powerhouses of Yang and Nora. And then there was her, the petite, nimble and mesmerizing Ruby. Her flowing scarlet cloak, her slender but defined arms, the way her mixed colored hair bounced and swayed as she flipped an kicked, and finally her pale but rosy face that emitted such overwhelming euphoria. She completely mystified Cinder with her pureness. The fiery seductress' concentration on the Rose until it was broken when an airborne pie struck Emerald on the side of her face, covering it in a mixture of mashed apple, crust and whipped cream.

"Bwaggh! T-THE HELL MERC?"

The ruby-eyed girl furiously turned towards her partner, while trying to wipe the creamy substance from her face. The certainty of Mercury casting the pie that struck her was without doubt as he was the only one at that moment with a stockpile of the delicious confections.

"Hehehe come on Em! Lighten up. I need some back up here," he laughed as he launched another pie at Yang who intercepted it and returned right back at its place of origin with meteoric speed. Despite, what he felt and thought about the Beacon students, Mercury had to admit, they could be fun.

"Tch. In your dreams moron!" Emerald spat back before once more looking to Cinder, "Cinder? Come on. We..."

"Cinder!" came the voice of Ruby Rose.

Interrupting Emerald's plea the daughter of Rose and Xiao Long ran up to followers of darkness while evading a sudden barrage of soda-cans from Phyrra. Smoothly she slid right next to the two infiltrators.

"Cinder! Emerald! I need some help taking down Ren and Phyrra! Any chance you two could help me out?" Ruby requested while flashing one of the brightest smiles anyone could give.

"W-What?" gaped Emerald at the sniper-scythe wielder, "What makes you think we'd..."

"Ruby, I don't think that we…" Cinder initially interjected before taking in Ruby's excited expression. Her amber eyes locked with Ruby's silver ones, eyes so vibrant and filled with life. Normally, she'd want nothing more than to snuff out such virtuousness, but again, Cinder did not feel it with Ruby. No, instead she felt a bizarre and out of character need to protect the happiness of the girl. Thus, she realized to spare Ruby disappointment, she begrudgingly but calmly responded, "What do you need us to do?"

"Huh?"

To say Emerald's face fell into one of shock would have been an understatement. She questioned whether she was in a dream or not, as she refused to accept that Cinder Fall, one of the most strong-willed, mature, deadly and ambitious people in all of Remnant had just agreed...to partake in a food fight. She had also, without any warning, signed Emerald up to aid in Ruby's fight. Things were simply no longer making any sense to Emerald.

"Emerald, I need you to draw their fire as Cinder and I use the tables as cover to try and flank them on their right. Cinder, as soon as we get there we'll take out Jaune first, then Ren before finally focusing on Phyrra hehehe," Ruby chuckled as she gave her instructions. "You ok with that?"

Before Emerald could even begin to protest, Cinder once more spoke for her, "Sounds like a plan. Lead the way little Rose…Emerald."

"Y-Yes ma'am?" Emerald replied, still confused at what was going on.

"Make sure they don't spot us coming," Cinder ordered before her face took on a small smile.

With that both Fall and Rose moved to prone positions beside one another and began to crawl military style beneath the tables. Emerald started at the bizarre sight of Cinder crawling before shaking her head and adhering to the orders her superior gave to her...as strange and out of character as they were.

"Sigh...can't believe I'm actually doing this..." the former thief mumbled to herself before arising and took to chucking a mixture of fruits and meats at the survivor of Kuryuri and Champion of the Mistral regional tournament. Both of course immediately returned fire in kind to which Emerald comedically dodged.

Save for the eleven participants of the food warfare, the cafeteria of Beacon was completely empty. The cacophony of noise that the eleven created would contradict such an idea. Plates shattered, food splattered, silverware clanged and each individual gave a roaring scream as they gave it their all defeat their foes with chickens, cakes, noodles and any other edible substance they could grab. Any outside passerby would assume the noise emanating from the hall signified actual combat taking place. Granted, the way each participant was conducting himself or herself, such a notion wasn't far off.

"Blood for syrup!" Nora war cried as she slammed her pancake mallet into the end of a table.

The table end easily buckled under the force of Nora's strike and created a catapult-like motion as the rest of the table flew up. The food upon the dining top shot off and towards the silver-haired agent of evil. Mercury's jaw slightly flew at the sight of the wall of confections barreling towards him. Quickly recomposing himself, he used a combination of his advanced robotic legs and two sticks of butter to "skate" between the multitudes of airborne foodstuffs. Nora cackled at the sight as in the moment Mercury gained the appearance of some kind of figure skater.

"Ha. Nice try Pancake brain but you're gonna need to better than th-bwaagh!" Mercury yelped in shock and pain as something hit him from behind.

Whatever struck him contained enough force behind it that he was sent careening towards Nora. The orange haired ball of energy was not prepared for an actual body to be flying at her and thus failed to move in time. As soon as he collided with her, both Mercury and Nora tumbled and rolled over one another until they crashed into a rather large cake.

"Yeah! Two for the price of one," Yang cheered.

Mercury was the first to arise from the cake. From head to waist he was covered in a mixture of white frosting and yellowcake crumbs. Swiftly he wiped away the sweet dessert's remains from his face before giving a hard glare at the young girl that had just humiliated him.

"Alright then…" he commented.

Seeing her foe rise once more to face her, Yang adopted a smug grin, "Oh? Back for more are we?"

She proceeded to give him a "bring it" gesture with her free hand and while showing off the big roasted chicken she had crafted into a gauntlet. She then assumed her fighting stance while commenting, "Let's taste if you're a man...or a chicken."

"You know..." Mercury said spitting the remains of cake that were in his mouth, "...I never liked vanilla cake but I have to admit that it's way better than listening to your lame puns."

"Oh, now you done it, old man. I'm going to end you!" Yang said with her eyes glowing fiery red once more before she charged towards him.

"Ha, how original. Mocking me for my hair," Mercury said as he also charged towards the blonde haired huntress. Soon both were heatedly engaged in an incredible fighting sequence between Yang's chicken fists and Mercury's greased feet.

"Augh! We can't fight back," Weiss complained.

The Schnee heir, now accompanied by Emerald, endeavored to find cover from the unstoppable rain of food that came from the side of Pyrrha, Jaune, and Ren. The two males of the trio threw their stockpiles of food at the rate an automatic rifle would fire its ammunition. Pyrrha, on the other hand, made use of her semblance to deploy cascades of silverware and soda at the panicking duo. As they ran Weiss saw their salvation ahead in the form of a large mound of upturned tables that in many ways resembled a barricade.

"Quick! Behind those tables," Weiss instructed to her ally and they both jumped towards the safety of the tables.

’Cinder and Ruby at that same moment were attempting to engage their flanking maneuver as team JNPR became solely focused on the others. They had completely failed to notice the sneaky approach of Ruby and Cinder.

"Are you ready Cinder?"

"..."

"As soon as Phyrra's out of ammunition we can..."

Ruby never finished her description of their counter-attack. It was interrupted by the duel of Yang and Mercury. In their thirst to out due one another, the battle crazed brawler and assassin had obliterated the tables that had allowed the scythe and bow wielders to progress as far as they did. Yang swiped at Mercury's buttery metallic appendages with her full might. The resulting impact somehow had thrown each other and the remaining tables back, one of which was knocked into the face of Mercury who stumbled back in a comical way before falling over. The Suddenness of this skirmish by their flank instantly alerted Ren, As the quite young man surveyed the lightning fast bout, he instantly saw the prone figures of Ruby and Cinder now without their cover. Ruby's eyes grew wide as she saw Ren see them.

"C-Cinder," she squeaked.

"…" mutely replied Cinder.

"Fall back! We're exposed!" Ruby shouted before jumping from the ground and dashing to where Weiss and Emerald had taken cover. Cinder watched as she ran before looking back to Ren and saw that he had directed Phyrra and Jaune to open fire at her current location.

"...Shit," she muttered before she too made a dash for the refuge of Weiss and Emerald's table barricade. Behind her droves of flying, food and drink crashed into the ground at such strength and speed the floor's tiles began to crack. Cinder, surprisingly found the whole experience to be invigorating. Of course nowhere near the level she had felt when trying to acquire the Fall Maiden's power years ago, but this time it felt different. As she took cover alongside the others she cast a look at Emerald that informed her that she was disappointed that she did not completely succeed at drawing the enemy's fire. Emerald made a motion to where Mercury lay prone, blaming him for blowing their cover.

As Emerald defended herself, Ruby and Weiss were contemplating battle strategies, "Alright our flanking plan didn't work...Oh what if we..."

Again the silver-eyed warrior's proposed stratagem was interrupted as a vending machine soared above their heads and crashed into the floor front of the quartet.

"S-sorry about that!" came Phyrra's apology once, sounding clearly embarrassed, that is until she once more resumed her fire.

"Has anyone ever said that her semblance is completely OP?" Emerald inquired her mouth agape at the sight of the crushed vending machine.

"Ugggh. This is pointless! We're completely pinned! There's no way we can win this!" huffed Weiss throwing her arms up in frustration.

"Don't give up yet Weiss. We gotta keep going on till our last breath. Till the las...wait a minute. Where is Blake?" Ruby asked looking for her faunus partner as she realized her absence.

"She's there" Weiss directed with her thumb towards a dizzied Blake lying on the floor surrounded by loads of discarded food. "While we were fighting, she got distracted when she saw a bowl filled with fish and that allowed Pyrrha to knock her out," Weiss explained.

An awkward single sweat drop slid down the foreheads of Emerald, Cinder, and Ruby out disbelief that something like that could have happened. They were all brought back to the battle at hand as more food and utensils crashed into and rocked the table barrier.

"We'll avenge you, Blake!" Ruby shouted.

"But how? We don't have an opening to counterattack," Weiss reminded the energetic girl.

"Then I'll create one!" Ruby said with a playfully serious face. Both Cinder and Weiss couldn't help but look at the black-red haired huntress in confusion of what she may have been thinking.

"What do you mean Ruby?"Cinder followed up with, "What are you going to do now?"

"If I don't make it..." Ruby said almost like if she was about to cry "it was a pleasure to have served with you all...And tell Yang...not to touch my stuff."

Ruby suddenly disappeared from the sight of all three women, leaving behind a flutter of rose petals. Cinder found the falling scarlet floral remnants quite beautiful and certainly a fitting tribute to the last name of the young woman.

"She's creating a distraction," Weiss said, pulling Cinder from her petal-induced trance. The undercover villainess rapidly realized what Weiss meant. The food assault from JNPR was no longer aimed where they were. Instead, the enemy trio had their sights focused on Ruby. Said target had transformed herself with her semblance of speed into a mesmerizingly beautiful flying twister of scarlet. With such incredible speed, the twister danced in the air as it avoided anti-air soda cans, chickens and cakes.

"This is our chance."Weiss' voice, however, was muted out as Cinder once more contemplated her current situation. Without Ruby beside her, the black-haired femme fatale was able to think more clearly.

'What the hell am I doing? Am I really lowering myself to playing this ridiculous game…just because I've gained an interest in that girl?' her brow furrowed as the realization made her more frustrated and angry with herself. 'Shit. How could I be so moronic as to get up in this foolishness? If we were to leave now it could lead to unnecessary questions and make these teams more reluctant to interact with us.'

Cinder bit her lip as such an option was out of the question. She knew there was something about Ruby that tugged at her curiosity. To have the girl skeptical of her would make her investigation that much more difficult. She once more reaffirmed her commitment to the fight, which she acknowledged was rather fun. As she prepared to move with the Schnee heiress a thought crossed her mind. A thought that made her realize that the mock battle did have an actual benefit to their overall mission. With this second realization, Cinder donned her signature smirk.

"Cinder, are you coming?" Weiss asked readying her swordfish.

Cinder's smirk dissipated and was with a serious look and nodded affirmatively. She then turned her gaze to her underling.

"Emerald. Make sure you cover us this time," Cinder she commanded while her eyes flashed with flames, emphasizing her point. Emerald nodded her head fervently before picking up bottles of both ketchup and mustard respectably.

'What the hell is happening? Why is Cinder agreeing to partake in this childish fight? Mercury, I can understand. But Cinder? The hell is going on?' Emerald pondered as she readied herself.

Weiss and Cinder vaulted over the barricade and rushed towards their distracted targets, picking up whatever leftover foods had yet be eviscerated by the intense cuisine melee. As they did Emerald fired globs of the condiments at Phyrra. The red-headed warrior noticed the flavored projectiles streaking towards her person and easily dodged the airborne sauces. True to her form and combat aptitude she redirected a fair portion of her floating soda cans at the poor villainess. Emerald gave an audible gulp at the sight of hundreds of cans paralleling towards her. Her body refused to move at the somehow terrifying sight and was quickly buried beneath the avalanche of pop.

Cinder rolled her eyes at her apprentice's inability to dodge before refocusing on Weiss and the JNPR trio that stood ahead. Cinder thrusted several chocolate chip cookies toward Jaune as if they shurikens. She aimed for Jaune under the analytical deduction that he was the weakest and clumsiest of the group. Her assumption on him being clumsy was correct as when the blonde boy turned to face the new threat he undertook attempts to dodge the cookies in a laughable fashion but in the end, failed. Several of the crisp snacks struck him in the face, hands, knees and of course the nether regions. The striking of the latter area forced the boy to collapse in excruciating pain and rolled off JNPR's hill of wrecked tables.

The loss of Jaune easily distracted Phyrra who rushed to his aid before Ren stopped her and ordered her to focus at the present threat at hand. With a mental apology to her crush, Phyrra focused her efforts on the heiress and attempted murderer. Once more using her semblance she raised hundreds of soda cans, eating utensils and other metallic objects from the floor into a massive singular cluster. The redhead prepared to fire it at the oncoming Haven and Beacon team up as they drew nearer.

"Phyrra! To your right! Ruby's coming in for an attack!" Ren suddenly cried.

Phyrra, Weiss and Cinder's all snapped their heads to see the spiraling twister of petals that was Ruby, launch herself in a spearheaded assault at both Ren and Phyrra. Reacting on instinct, the girl of polarity commanded her magnetized weapons of the food war towards the leader of RWBY. Luckily for Ruby, she was able to pull out of her attack vector just before colliding head-on into the pillar of food and cans that had been sent at her. Unfortunately, on her escape trajectory, she still scrapped alongside a fair portion of the attack and flew out of control, crash landing upon the mess hall floor and into a large puddle of soda. Seeing this Cinder and Weiss both changed direction and ran to the fallen huntress. Both skidded next to her in an attempt to assess the damage.

Weiss addressed her comrade before Cinder could even begin to form words, "Ruby? Ruby are you ok?"

They rolled her body onto her back to get a better look at her. The small warrior emitted some coughs as she slowly opened her silver eyes to look at both women who attended to her. Her expression conveyed sadness as she extended both hands to grasp the hands of both women who kneeled beside her.

"W-Weiss...cough…C-Cinder...I-I'm feeling cold. Cough, cough…" Ruby croaked in a clearly exaggerated tone of pain. Knowing her leader was simply being her playful self, Weiss simply rolled her eyes and sighed in relief that she was fine.

Cinder proceeded to remark,"Maybe that feeling has to do with the fact that you're laying in a puddle of soda?”

Weiss followed Cinder's deduction, "And it's quite sticky, thank you for showing us that by grabbing our hands."

"Don't ruin this for me!" Ruby shouted annoyed before resuming her self-imposed role of a dying warrior, "Cough…G-Girls…cough…a-avenge me...a-avenge...uuggggaaa…" Ruby finished her dramatic plea with an improvised dying sound before she closed her eyes and went limp. Deciding for once to actually continue the charade for her friend, Weiss cried out in theatrical anguish over the stiff "corpse" of Ruby. Cinder, however, took up the opportunity Ruby presented her in her "final" moments.

"Weiss…lets get her out of here. Then we shall avenge her," Cinder stated as she stood up and sized up Phyrra and Ren. Both had, in a small sign of respect, allowed them to have the small moment to say "goodbye" to Ruby.Weiss looked up at the "Haven Student" before nodding. They proceeded to carry Ruby out of the puddle of soda and onto one of the few remaining tables. There the two of them laid the fallen leader to 'rest'. Then both quickly went to procure weapons for the final battle that was upon them.

Cinder grabbed two long baguettes. She activated the fire dust sewn into her clothing and roasted both baguettes so thoroughly that when done, each was as hard as a metal pipe. Weiss proceeded to take up the swordfish she had already been using. Yet at the same time, she skewered various foods upon the fish's namesake, turning it like some kind of shish kebab of tomatoes, meatballs, fish, cakes and many more. When finished reequipping, both young women stood side by side ready to end the destructive conflict.

In a small but extravagant tribute, Weiss directed her weapon towards both Pyrrha and Ren and proclaimed, "For Blake!"

Picking up on Weiss's intention to dedicate the final melee to the "fallen," Cinder settled to play along and declared, "For Emerald."

Somewhere buried beneath a pile of crushed and leaking soda cans, the future Fall maiden's apprentice gave a tiny squeak of joy.

As the unlikely team-up began to walk then sprint forward they gave a synchronized cry "and for Ruby!"

The four engaged in a clash with a phenomenal display of combat choreography. Ren flipped backwards into the air before, using her own idea against her, chucked several cookies like shurikens against Cinder. Not surprisingly, she simply deflected them with her hardened swords of bread. Weiss, meanwhile, used her fishy rapier covered with its added assortment of consumables not only as a close quarter tool but also as a projectile launcher. Every slash and thrust she made through the air fired one of the impaled foods at Pyrrha's pale face. Given how close they were it became increasingly difficult for the red-haired champion to effectively evade the tasty projectiles and the pointy end of the deceased fish's bill. Fortunately for her, her semblance was able to award her with more metallic lunch trays to use as shields.After what could have easily been ten minutes of non-stop action fight, everything ended up between Cinder and Pyrrha after they both had ended their respective opponents. The black haired nefarious woman had defeated Ren with a well-timed slash upside his head, knocking him out. The woman with the semblance of polarity had bested Weiss with a pair of éclairs. As Weiss had pressed her advance, Pyrrha came across the pastries near one of the many upturned tables. Wasting no time she grasped the doughy rods and aimed that at the white-haired girl and squeezed. Vanilla and chocolate cream shot at fire hose speeds into the face of the shocked RWBY member. Upon impact with her face, she flew back and slammed into the floor, knocked out with a face covered in delicious pastry cream. For the third time since the entire theater of warfare had begun, the red-haired woman quickly apologized. It was then that she gave her full attention to the young woman she had only been introduced to only a little while ago.

"Most impressive. You've managed to beat three members of that team along with my own teammate all on your own," Cinder commended.

"I appreciate the compliment. I can also tell by the way that you fight that you yourself are quite skilled. It's oblivious you defeated Jaune and Ren without using your true potential," Pyrrha observed.

Cinder's eyes narrowed at Pyrrha's deduction. The girl was already known to be a prodigal warrior, but now Cinder recognized that she was also extremely observant from her statement alone. Cinder hadn't even really fought in the lunchroom war, but even then she did her best to act at the same level as the students. Pyrrha though, even as she directed her magnetic attacks and dueled with Weiss, had been able to observe her and deduce that she was, in fact, holding back. She wondered briefly if Pyrrha was able to grasp the true extension of her abilities. If so that girl alone could compromise the whole mission. However, the way she acted towards Cinder failed to raise any more alarms for the young woman.

"Hmmm very observant. Though I'm curious," Cinder replied as she flourished her grain-based weapons, "Are you strong enough to best me?"

"We shall see,” Pyrrha answered and assumed her natural fighting stance. In one hand she held a silver tray to act as her shield and in the other a salmai loaf to be her javelin. “May the best huntress win,"

Both gave a curt nod to the other prior to their charge against one another for the final duel.

However, the huge food war would have a more unexpected end than it ending in a victory for either Cinder or Pyrrha. Before they had the opportunity to lock weapons, they were both suddenly knocked out as two bodies crashed into them at break speed. Yang and Mercury had recovered from their earlier bout and were set to duel again when Nora once more appeared. Her reentry into the fight was not expected and thus neither Yang nor Mercury was prepared for her attack. She whacked the two with her pancake mallet, resulting in them leaving the conscious state and sending their rag doll-like chassis slamming into Cinder and Pyrrha, rendering them unconscious as well. Pyrrha, Mercury, Cinder, and Yang ended up rolling over the food and debris littered floor and came to rest in a comical pile before the table Ruby lay on.

The victor Nora climbed up of a stack of overturned tables extended her arms to the ceiling and with a slightly crazed smile on her face laughed out, "I'm the queen of the cafeteria! I reign supreme! Bow before me you fools!"

The euphoria that Nora felt was not shared by a rather unhappy blonde haired woman. Glynda Goodwitch aggressively taped her foot and squeezed her crop in anger at the fact that the same eight students had destroyed the cafeteria only a week prior had done so again, this time with assistance with some of the exchange students. While normally she would clean the mess up with her semblance, she opted against such a route as she formulated another way to clean up the cafeteria. As such she allowed Nora to continue enjoying her moment as it would become greatly bittersweet once she and the others knew what was in store for them.

------

"Ugggh I can't believe Ms. Goodwitch!" Nora exclaimed as she and the other perpetrators of the cafeteria brawl marched down the academy halls to the janitorial office. "Repairing all the tables and walls is one thing but ordering us to actually clean up the entire cafeteria? Oh, she's a monster!"

"I simply can't fathom the fact that she's actually making us wear janitor jumpsuits," Weiss grimaced. The thought of herself wearing something so unappealing horrified her to no end.

"Oh lighten up princess. Janitor suits aren't that bad. It's not like your current look with a hot dog in your hair and sticky bun on your butt make you look any better," Yang laughed as she stretched her arms back over her head.

The response by the Schnee heiress was priceless as she yelled at everyone for not alerting her to such embarrassing effects being stuck to her.

"WHAT? I can't believe you all would allow me to traverse this far into the school without alerting me of these! So humiliating," the Ice princess declared as she rummaged her hair looking for the aforementioned hot dog. "Ugggh I hate you all," she grumbled after finding it and throwing into a nearby deposal bin, doing the same to the sneaky sticky bun that attached itself to her backside.

Deciding to be her joking self, Yang continued, "Jumpsuits looking pretty good now huh Weiss?"

"Oh shut up!"

"What? I'm just saying that jumpsuits can be really stylish. Especially if you know how to wear em the right way, am I right Blake?" Yang inquired to her cat friend while shooting her a quick wink.

Blake's cheeks quickly gained a rosy color at the combination of Yang's teasing and the image of said teasing installed into her mind. Yang, wearing a yellow and black jumpsuit, its zipper pulled down in such a way that exposed the smooth curvature of her cleavage. Her supple breasts almost wanting to fully escape from their containment within the bumblebee colored clothing. Blake could just see them, almost inviting her towards them and…Blake quickly shook her head violently trying to dispel the perverse thoughts from her mind. Blake reminded herself that Yang was her friend and teammate. Nothing more.

'Besides...I really shouldn't think about getting into another relationship for a while...' the feline fanus thought to herself. Though the blush upon her cheeks still remained, something that made Yang smile and hope.

Walking some distance behind the Beacon teams were the three undercover agents of Salem. While they obviously could have slipped away following Glynda ordering them as well to aid in the cleanup, Cinder had opted to not draw further attention by ignoring the punishment. As ridiculous as she claimed it was, it was a risk they could not take. Thus the false students trotted behind the others towards the office of the janitors.

"C-Cinder...I..." began Emerald. Stuttering, as she was nervous to even question Cinder's actions but her attitude and actions over the past week were cause for concern. " I hate to ask...but what was that back there? Why did you agree to take part in that stupid game? Mercury I can understand!"

"Hey what's that..."

"I'm not trying to..."

"Emerald. Mercury." Cinder sharply spoke, silencing the inquisitive and perplexed young woman and stopping any form of a snide comment from the silver-haired. "You should know I don't do things without a reason. Now stop questioning why I'm doing certain things and focus. Yes, we are stuck doing this time wasting task, however, think of the benefits it awards us." Cinder smoothly expressed, offering for both Emerald and Mercury to find the answer she was implying.

"...I-It makes us look more natural?" guessed Mercury.

"...yeah…we now appear far more like regular students," Emerald realized, her conflicting emotions beginning to at last steady themselves.

"Exactly. Just as well that little food fight gave some insight into those teams combat capabilities."

"I-I'm sorry for thinking that..."

"Don't think… Obey," Cinder commanded with a tone that held such power, that few would challenge it. Emerald and Mercury were not among those few.

"Hey Cinder! You guys are falling behind!" Ruby chimed trotting back towards the group of criminals.

"Oh excuse us, Ruby, we were just having a conversation about this silly punishment," Cinder said with a small smile to the cute young black red-haired huntress.

"Yeah about that..." Ruby said looking down to the floor like some sort of guilty child, "I...really want to apologize for getting you all in troubles...I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?... You don't have to be sorry for that, we all decided to participate with you all remember?" Cinder said with a calm and gentle tone in her voice.

"Yeah I know but...I mean, I don't want you all to be put off by us."

"And why would we be put off by you all?"

"Well… because every time we meet it seems something bad happens...I mean when we first met we ended up knocking into each other. Now we meet again and everyone ended up gettig punished by Ms. Goodwitch," the silver-eyed young huntress said rubbing the back of her head a bit nervously.

A pang of regret shot through Cinder. Regret that she had made such a cute, sweet and caring young girl feel any form of guilt over this minor inconvenience. Upon fathoming this Cinder took a deep breath. Once more, the girl before her was making her feel unusual and out of character. She was causing her to experience emotions she had long forgotten. Once more Cinder's thoughts became solely focused on the girl with a floral last name. Unlike the past several days, however, she didn't care. For whatever reason of the girl's influence upon her or the fact she consistently plagued her mind, it was in that moment Cinder cared not the reason. All she did care about, was making sure Ruby no longer felt guilty and ensuring she was happy once more.

"Ruby..." Cinder said as she placed a hand on the shorter girl's shoulder, "...you don't need to apologize at all. In fact, I should thank you for what you all ended up doing back there."

Emerald, Mercury and even Ruby looked slightly baffled at such a claim. Granted the former two rapidly assumed, remembering what she had said moments ago, Cinder was once more acting to continue gaining the girl's trust.

"Truth be told, Emerald, Mercury and I have never really experienced something as fun and carefree as what you and your team did along with team JNPR. It was quite unique and exciting and for that, I should thank you little Rose," Cinder said with a genuine smile that made Ruby's cheek turn slightly pinkish for a moment.

"Yeah, even if I ended up with a concussion thanks to your sister’s punches and that crazy chick's hammer, I have to admit that it was a wild ton of fun back there," Mercury said following along with the play that he believed that Cinder was putting on, while also confessing some truth.

"Yeah...even if it was gross and messy, I can't help but admit that I did really enjoy that food fight," Emerald said with a smile on her face. Which along with Mercury's funny comment and Cinder's words transformed the solemn Ruby into her naturally bubbly self once more.

"Oh you guys are awesome," Ruby cheered before she jumped and gave Cinder a big 'thank you' hug.

Her action shocked both the silver-haired assassin and mint haired illusionist. Their shock, however, was nowhere near the level of shock Cinder was at. She simply could only stand there not knowing how to react, yet somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, she knew…she enjoyed the hug. As soon Ruby realized what she was doing, she broke the hug, much to the silent disappointment of Cinder.

"Hehe sorry for that. I couldn't help it...Anyway, I'll see you guys at the janitor's office," the sniper-scythe wielder said with a smile as she ran to catch up to teams JNPR and RWBY.

Cinder's rational mind had come flooding back as Ruby disappeared from sight. Her perplexion with the young girl resumed in earnest but this time it was different. The nefarious woman acknowledged she needed to discover what made Ruby so impactful on her. Why she made her feel so foreign to herself and randomly enwrap her thoughts. Yet at the same time, she could no longer deny that she rather enjoyed the warm and bright feeling Ruby supplied her with. It felt, nice. But as nice as it felt, Cinder knew she had to discover the mystery that was Ruby Rose before they put their plans into full motion.

"Ptch that girl is weird..." Mercury said with an amused tone after Ruby was completely out of their field of view, pulling a now focused Cinder back to reality.

"She's more than likely going to be a problem, right?" Emerald asked with an annoyed look. When she did not receive an answer from her motherly figure, she turned her way and found her looking, with her trademark smile towards the hallway Ruby had disappeared down.

"…Perhaps," Cinder, at last, purred in response before motioning the two to follow her down the same hallway to join the others in clean-up duty, "I will keep a personal eye on her… to see if she really is."

------

"So you're sure that our enemy has already infiltrated the school?" James Ironwood asked to the two others who stood within the office of the headmaster.

Assembled there were he and Gylnda, two of the select few who had been entrusted with the secret truths of the world they lived in and who held council with the room's third occupant. That occupant was the very man who had revealed to them those secrets and the one who led them, Ozpin.Said man sat behind a large desk from which he could view almost all of Beacon, gingerly sipping coffee from his favorite mug. Completing his quench of thirst, he set the piping hot ceramic cup on his desk before folding his hands and looked ominously before his disciples.

"There is no doubt in my mind that they have arrived. No better opportunity has there been to slip into the school than the influx of exchange students arriving for the festival," the white-haired man said calmly, "I also have strong reason to believe that these infiltrators are the same ones Qrow encountered two years ago."

"Sir...are you suggesting that they've come to..." began Glynda.

"Yes...unfortunately I do believe that they know she is here and have come to finish the job," Ozpin answered his brow furrowing in frustration.

"Then why have you yet to increase security?" shouted Ironwood, "If they are here and we know what they are after, we must take the necessary precautions and defend this institution and its assets!"

However, Ozpin countered the man's thinking, "James, I understand your train of thought yet we cannot act irrationally."

"Irrationally? Two years ago we nearly lost one of our greatest assets to the cause and now you're informing us that they who perpetrated the act are nowhere? How is what I'm proposing acting irrationally?"

"First of all, she is not simply an asset. She is our friend and ally. Secondly, you must trust me on this James, there is a reason we have not enforced security around the academy. We cannot have an overwhelming presence of force. It will alert our enemies that we are on to them and in turn will make them far more cautious. We need them to assume that we are not aware of their presence and in doing so they may make a costly mistake," Ozpin explained to his student and friend.The well-built man looked down slightly embarrassed by his outburst. Ozpin, of course, meant not to shame the man and attempted to ease his conscious, "But if it will please you, I'll have you know several of our best hunters will be returning soon to aid in the security detail. Have trust in me, James."

"...I do. I'm sorry… I merely wish to make sure everyone is kept safe." Ironwood commented before turning away to the lift out of the office, " If you will excuse me, I must make sure the final groups of my students have all arrived and are settled in."

"Go, James. See to the youthful minds you help shape." smiled Ozpin before once more taking a sip of his caffeinated beverage.

James bowed and entered the lift and descended to the levels below. Unbeknownst to either Glynda or Ozpin, James, despite his apology, still held reservation against Ozpin's strategy. Taking out his scroll her began to make some calls.

After a brief pause of silence following Ironwood's exit did Glynda at last speak up, "Sir...I hate to say it...but James may be right about the security measures. Are you sure a few hunters will be enough to protect the school? If the situation is as grave as you say it is..."

"No Glynda I'm not sure," sighed Ozpin. "Still though, while this is a dark situation we find ourselves in, we cannot invite anymore conflict and anxiety amongst ourselves. The kind of force James proposes would not only undoubtedly alert our enemies that we are aware of them, but it was also insight fear and other negative emotions among the students and staff. We cannot have that. It will only bring more trouble with it. Therefore we can only do what we can and pray that we can stop their plans in time."

------

At that same moment, a young woman stepped off one of the many airships arriving at Beacon. Compared to the other students emerging from the ships, one might have mistaken her for a preteen given her diminutive height. Her multi-colored eyes looked upon the academy in the not too far distance and smirked as she had at last reached her target. Granted, she would have preferred to have stayed in the city of Vale itself and aid her father figure in continuing the plan there and ensuring his safety. Unfortunately, she had been ordered to meet up with their allies and aid directly with their infiltration, which she did note could be quite fun. Placing her pink parasol on her shoulder, Neapolitan made her way down the grand entranceway towards Beacon Academy.

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