surgeworks

16 – Volume 2, Episode 3, “It’s Brawl in the Family” | Table of Contents | 18 – Volume 3, Episode 6, “Fall”
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Last we left off, Qrow happened. Qrow, an aggravating, aggressive, rude, violent, absolute jackass of a character dressed up as the “cool drunk uncle who’s rough around the edges” happened. And unfortunately, unlike the new character I actually enjoyed, he’s going to stick around.

*sigh* Let’s just get into it. Today we dip back into the Vytal Tournament. These upcoming fights are…okay, I guess?

V3E4, “Lessons Learned”

We open on a shot of the floating Amity Colosseum, inside which the match selected by Cinder at the end of the last episode is beginning. Deep breaths, people.

Emerald and Mercury, Cinder’s underlings, stand opposite Coco and Yatsuhashi, the two biggest badasses from the Volume 2 Finale who we saw enacting an absolute massacre on the invading Grimm in a display of style and power it’s hard to match. By comparison, all we’ve seen from Mercury and Emerald is a murder of an unarmed man that, even in the short time it happened, I had to take to task for a bit of bullshit. Anyone comparing feats right now is going to laugh, as Coco and Yatsuhashi are obviously going to cream these dopes, unless you’ve been perusing the world of fiction for more than five minutes and can identify that ominous sensation that tells you these hither-to unknown entities are about to deliver a shocking upset to enhance the Cerebus Syndrome. I just wish it had been done better.

Anyway, the landscape settings are spinning. Coco stands confidently while Yatsuhashi meditates, and Velvet wishes them luck from the stands. The landscape ends up not half-and-half, as was in the teams rounds, but 4x4, split between tall grassy plains, a thick forest, a set of empty buildings in ruin, and a set of watery crags and fumaroles blasting steam. Coco lowers her sunglasses and offers a compliment.

C: Hey, love the outfit, kid.

E: I’ll try not to get blood on it.

Y: [standing up and drawing his huge sword] I can’t promise you’ll leave without a scratch.

E: [rolling a shoulder] I won’t be the one bleeding.

C: Oh, I like her.

Port offers up the countdown, and as soon as it’s done, Emerald and Mercury calmly begin backing away into the tall grass to hide, vanishing from sight. This tactic seems a bit ill-advised; Coco and Yatsuhashi offer a look of affirmation to each other as this fight’s theme song, “I’m the One” begins to play, and Coco turns her purse into that bigass gatling gun again—to the cheers of audience members, many of whom are wearing berets and sunglasses like her. She’s at it very quickly, unleashing a stream of bullets that, aside from a few strays that hit the force field and scare some audience members, mows the grass down much shorter to reveal where they’re hiding...or not.

There’s no one there, even when the grassy section of the field is completely cut. It seems odd; surely if they quickly fled the bullets to another part of the stadium to hide in, someone should’ve seen or heard it, right?

Yatsuhashi and Coco are put off by this. WBY, in the audience, notice the oncoming threat before they do: out of nowhere, Mercury is descending from the sky, trying to bring one of those heavy boots down on Coco’s head. Yatsuhashi shoves her out of the way and blocks with his sword, off of which Mercury kicks to land some few yards away. Coco’s on him with that gatling gun immediately, trying to retaliate, but unfortunately, he’s fast enough to dodge—

And this is I found a slight problem only on this most recent viewing. See, in a slightly more restrained setting, I wouldn’t mind this. Mercury’s obviously a very fast person; we’ve seen his agility firsthand, and he’s got good enough speed and reflexes to get the drop on Pyrrha, for Christ’s sake. However, this approach to things is thrown off by a few factors. It wouldn't be unfair even to say that Mercury really is just that fast, but he's staying within Coco's line of sight and range of fire (rather than sprinting to cover, shaking off her aim, or getting too close to properly aim at, as is usually the case when fiction presents us individuals out-running a spray of bullets), and CoCo only has to turn her body in order to hit him; she's not burdened by this thing's weight, so it's a slight stretch to present him perfectly outrunning her fire--especially given that miniguns like this usually have a wider spread, as demonstrated with the shots hitting the force field a minute ago.

Okay, moving on before some people accuse me of over-analyzing. Sun’s team (who I am still pissed were so badly shunted to the side earlier) are watching; Sun, being a martial artist himself, is impressed with Mercury, but Scarlet is wondering where Emerald got off to.

Mercury closes in, leaping over Coco and swiping her gun barrel out of the way, then landing two broad strikes against Yatsuhashi, which sound like they hurt but certainly aren’t flooring him. Coco takes aim, and he leaps high, landing on the barrel of her gun—and that's significantly less believable than it would be had she not still been firing and the barrel still rotating. We'll let Rule of Cool save Mercury from slipping and falling on his ass here, although that would've been funny.

He dodges a swipe from Yatsuhashi when he leaps off of the gun, but then he lands and jumps again, trying for a kick, which Yatsuhashi takes as the cue to be the Knight to Tiny Little Weiss and just smack him out of the air—good on you, Yatsu. But Mercury moves with the momentum, grabbing onto Coco’s shoulder and using her to swing around, landing right behind her and pressing against the back of her gun, which ends up pressed straight to Yatsuhashi’s midsection.

That’s actually a really cool counter. Coco, a tad annoyed, returns her gun to its purse form and tries to punish his close-quarters approach, but the transformation takes too long and Mercury gets out from under her. Purse-onally (hehe), I’d have made to grab him by his stupid duck-butt hair and hold him in place before offering him a good few smacks with a handbag that weighs several tons, which would’ve made this fight a tad less unflattering for poor Coco and Yats, but I digress.

Mercury backflips away, sending out two homing bullets from his greaves that spiral through the air towards Coco and Yatsuhashi—who casually deflect them, looking cool as hell. But unfortunately, when Coco looks back up, Mercury is doing a little breakdance of bullets and has produced a storm of the things, circling around him in a whirlwhind. By unknown means, the whole thing is sent at Coco and Yatsuhashi at once, not seeming to cause too much damage as most of them don’t land, but creating a huge field of smoke that makes them lose sight of Mercury again.

Mercury is immediately upon them as they recover. He grabs them each by an arm, swinging them to either side and off-balance before throwing his boot into each one’s gut twice, then whacking poor Coco up and down her face before tossing her to the side with one last kick. Coco is trying to recover properly, but before she can get back in the fight, something happens.

A blade on an immensely long chain shoots out of the quarter of the arena covered by forest, wraps around Coco’s midsection, and yanks, dragging her off into the distance and into a pickle.

Yatsuhashi calls after her, worried, but is not so distracted by this that he lets Mercury go free, mind you. Mercury gets in one kick, before Yatsuhashi grabs him by the scruff of the neck mid-jump, leading to this amazing shot here as Mercury recognizes his frail mortality:

He tosses Mercury away onto the fumarole fields, and leaps very high into the air, trying to bring that massive blade down on the poor son of a bitch. But his attempted coup-de-grace fails, as Mercury blocks with his greaves even as a huge shockwave erupts around them that causes a bunch of vents to go off at once.

Without the bullshit that happens around Coco’s minigun in the way, we can now enjoy this 1v1 for what it is, a raw show of strength vs. strength, skill vs. skill, with it becoming obvious that Mercury’s just too agile for big Yatsuhashi to keep up with, and not fragile enough to the few hits Yatsuhashi lands to take. It’s somewhat even for a little while and not too embarrassing for Yatsuhashi, but more than satisfactorily cements Mercury as a capable and merciless fighter despite not swinging around a huge imposing weapon of death.

The two men trade blows for a while, with Yatsuhashi blocking a few kicks from Mercury, until the latter’s kick downward sends a few rocks up into the air that he then kicks at Yatsuhashi’s face. This catches him just off-guard enough that Mercury can move in for the kill, sliding under that huge blade and sending it careening off course before landing his leg in Yatsuhashi’s gut and knocking him back so that his face lands on a steam vent, just before it erupts, which probably hurts like hell.

Yatsuhashi drags himself up, trying to shake off the pain and the disorientation, only to see Mercury’s boot headed straight for his face. It’s obvious who’s going to overcome who.

Unfortunately, we then transition to Coco’s half of this fight, which is more minigun bullshit.

She’s being dragged back on that chain only to crash into a tree, and realize that her sunglasses have fallen off and shattered. Coco immediately switches gears, declaring that she no longer likes Emerald (and probably thinking to herself that she’ll bleed the cash those shades cost out of her).

Coco barely dodges a bullet that had her name on it, getting her gatling gun back out and returning fire. And here is where we see the one big massive problem that actually gets me mad. See that gif up there? And how Coco’s massive, street-shredding, Grimm-puree-ing bullets are just…hitting the trees and disappearing? Apparently bouncing off?

It’s a fucking M134. It was played for all the frankly absurd yet totally realistic power those things actually have last volume. They’re military weapons meant to take down aircraft and land-based war machines. They fucking chew through things they hit—which means this whole forest should be getting blasted into the sort of field full of wood chips that served as the ground on your elementary school playground. You know the ones.

This is the big problem of this fight, because this incident relies on Emerald using the trees as cover to evade Coco’s minigun and eventually vanish from her line of sight. Emerald can’t hide behind cover if she doesn’t have any cover, though. If Coco didn’t have a big “sorry, not allowed! sign hanging off of that rotating barrel right now, the outcome of this fight would significantly change.

I’ve heard so many excuses for this, such as “well, she probably used bullets with less power so stray shots wouldn’t hurt anyone”, which is bullshit, because Yatsuhashi is a massive tank and the only other people she’s not trying to shoot are safe behind force fields as demonstrated just a minute ago. There’s no reason given, nor one available, for why Coco’s bullets are reacting to wood like they’re made of…well, actually, I can’t think of any particular substance that a bullet moving at that speed and force wouldn’t rip through. Even shots from weaker hand-held firearms with a lot less force behind them can punch through steel depending on what they’re aimed at. That was another excuse I was given, though, that the trees were made of something super high-quality so they wouldn’t be destroyed, which makes no sense as we’ve seen Nora’s grenades blast them to pieces quite easily and the arrangers of the tournament have no reason to provide indestructible trees.

Take these points.

Your Fight Scene Sucks: 30

Three points for just how insane that is.

Anyway, Coco curses (“Damn!") after having lost track of Emerald. Just then, something very unnerving happens.

Yatuhashi’s voice calls Coco’s name, and she turns around to see him strolling into the small clearing she’s in. She turns her back to him, telling him to watch out for Emerald in the trees—only for the alarm bell to ring and Port’s commentary to declare that Yatsuhashi was just eliminated, complete with video footage of the final blow happening back on the rocky crags.

Coco is in shock, and we make a big play of how this big badass is now shaking in her boots. No, seriously, her hands are shaking on the handle of her minigun and there’s even Psycho Strings playing. That’s a bit overblown, but whatever, fear is the appropriate response here. Coco is looking around for Emerald—she has to be here somewhere, right?

But we see someone rising behind her…

It’s Emerald, standing a mere foot behind her, which Coco only becomes aware of when the slick sound of her blade sliding out of its holster sounds out. She turns around just as Emerald swings…and the fight is over.

One blow, and Coco is not only out, but unconscious, as we see when she’s tossed out of the woods to join the prone Yatsuhashi. Emerald strides out of the woods, seen by the audience for the first time and coolly swinging a chain, while Mercury casually observes how worked-over these two look. Oobleck declares them the winner, but the massive upset by the underdogs was so thorough that the onlookers are less impressed than outright disturbed. In the stands behind Ruby, Cinder gets up and walks away with a satisfied smile on her face.

Okay, so. That fight.

First, before I forget to say it, the soundtrack “I’m the One” is about Emerald and Mercury, going into how they’re basically capable and violent thugs who are simply the sort of people you don’t fuck with if you value your life. Which I’d find a lot more appropriate if their badassery wasn’t sitting on the shoulders of Coco’s evidently plastic minigun, but whatever. There’s some backstory hints in there, too.

Anyway, this fight isn’t nearly as terrible as SSSN vs. NDGO; with the fight there, it’s clear the intent was to embarrass SSSN and waste the viewers’ time and expectations. Here, the intent is to hype up Mercury and Emerald by having them thoroughly trash two fighters we already established as a level above our already-badass main cast. I can dig that, I just wish it wasn’t so overblown that it looks like these two are being nerfed to make it happen. Mercury was clearly laying the beatdown, and poor Coco never had a chance against Emerald.

Oh, right, about Emerald. See, you might be wondering why Emerald was able to lose Coco’s aim so quickly, or why Coco didn’t realize someone was behind her until Emerald wanted her to. The answer is in that fake Yatsuhashi that strolled up behind her, which no one else saw. It was an illusion.

Actually, it was a hallucination. The audience caught on pretty easily to the fact that Coco was being made to see and hear things that weren’t real. This ran them straight into a little bit of trouble when some of them assumed Emerald and Mercury were actually cheating by having Neo involved in the fight—which was not too wild an assumption, as Neo has an established ability to create illusions and some people obviously wanted to soften the blow to Coco and Yatsu a little. No, it’s actually Emerald, and this is her Semblance: she can get into someone’s mind and control what they see and hear. It would take a while for this to settle in, and even among the audience who didn’t fall for the whole ‘it was Neo!’ rumor, debate would flow on whether it was Mercury or Emerald who actually had the hallucination ability. It’s Emerald, which I’ll admit does seem a bit redundant with Neo’s powers.

What’s Mercury’s semblance, anyway? Don’t worry about it, because he doesn't have one. We'll get to that later, but I can promise it will be crap.

There was also some audience intrigue about whether Sun would come back from his humiliating display and be instrumental in exposing this, somehow. You see, fans who know of Sun Wukong’s namesake understand that one of his powers was being able to see through illusions. Unfortunately, no such thing happened.

The scene cuts to a very beautiful garden where sunlight is shining. I’m not sure where it’s supposed to be; presumably it’s somewhere at beacon, but the Classical Hellenic direction of this quaint little gazebo doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen there, or anywhere else in Vale.

Winter is enjoying some time with her sister, sharing a pot of tea and a plate of croissants and strawberries, and discussing Weiss’ progress as a fighter.

W: You’re…leaving?

Wn: Yes.

Yep! She was here for a fight scene and this little character development scene and she will be exiting the story thereafter. Given that my span of RWBY knowledge goes to Volume 6, I was pretty sure she dropped off the face of the planet entirely, but I have it on record she comes back in Volume 7, so no, she's not gone, but she does vanish for four straight years, so it's still getting slapped with a point. I’ll wait until this scene is over until giving it the point, ‘cause it’s time for the Weiss Character Development Train to continue on its merry journey.

Winter says she was only overseeing the transport of additional units to Vale, probably so no more of them got fucking hijacked, and took the opportunity to see Weiss while doing so.

Wn: It’s fortunate those Paladins were still in the prototype stage. Otherwise your team may not have fared so well.

Weiss looks down, apparently mistaking this as the sort of criticism she’s familiar with from Winter, but Winter extends a hand and says she’s actually done well, and that she should be proud. She also actually smiles, recalling the priceless look on their father’s face the day Weiss left for Beacon. Weiss says she can’t wait to show him what she’s learned, and Winter asks what she thinks that is.

Weiss gets her old self-assurance back as she brings up her Semblance, even having mastered “time dilation”, so yeah, I wasn’t lying to you all when I said Weiss can control fucking time. Still broken. But Winter deflates her with one question: what of her summoning?

Her what, you ask. This is where we get our reveal that Weiss’ Semblance is unlike the others in the show. It’s multi-faceted, not only allowing her to conjure surfaces that attract or repel as needed, but caste a time dilation field as mentioned, and also to summon previously defeated enemies. Winter knows all about this because that’s not actually the reveal, the reveal is that the “Schnee Semblance” is in fact hereditary, not exclusive to the individual as with every other Semblance in the show. Winter can do all of the things Weiss can and more, which puts her in the unique position of being able to teach Weiss how to use it.

This is kind of… eurgh. See, Now that Weiss’ previous character arcs of being mean to Ruby (sigh) and not being racist (bleck) are “over”, we need something new for Weiss to do. I can let this bending of the rules regarding Semblances slide a little…once. Not twice.

Anyway, now to let you all in on why I said “uuuurrrrgh” last post mid-fight between Qrow and Winter. The audience at the time went wild when that glint in his red eye showed up, because red is the color Yang’s eyes turn when she activates her own Semblance, and immediately went off speculating that his Semblance was the same as his niece Yang’s, to absorb and return fire with the power of the damage dealt to him, or at least related, and they took this scene as proof. I hated every second of it because it demonstrated that apparently half the fandom at the time (I’m not kidding, this was everywhere) had problems with listening skills. Winter says in this very scene that the hereditary Schnee Semblance is unique for being so.

Weiss, in the present, says she can’t summon. Winter chides her: every Schnee can summon.

Wn: We Schnees are unique. Unlike many, our Semblance is hereditary.

See? Right there in the text.

Winter advises Weiss that her Semblance is like a muscle, growing as it’s used, so she shouldn’t give up at it just because it doesn’t come easily. She conjures her own glyph, summoning a life-sized Beowolf made of ice and light behind her.

That’s pretty badass.

And then we—oh, god damn it, not this again.

We don’t get to finish the scene because we have to cut back to fucking Qrow. I think I hate this asshole more than I hate Jaune so far. But everybody shhh, it’s time for the other half of the newcomer party to interact with the coming generation.

Ruby and Qrow are in her dorm, playing video games while Yang cheers on her sister, to no avail as Qrow whoops her in the fighting game they’re playing.

Q: By the way, don’t ever call me ‘old’. [After Yang scoots over and takes up a controller to start a new game] Now, where was I?

R: You were telling us about your last mission!

Qrow goes into the story. He’d come across a small village, in the swamps west of Mistral. As he describes it, he was looking for information, and given that he was tired from fighting Grimm all day, he decided to try and look for it in the town’s inn. It was a dismal place full of thugs and ne’er-do-wells, and even Huntsmen working some shadier jobs. And that’s when ‘it’ happened. Yang asks what ‘it’ is, and—”

Q: I was defeated…by the mere sight…of the innkeeper’s skirt length!

Yang finds this about as amusing as I do, which is to say ‘not at all’ and also ‘shut up’ via corgi pillow thrown at his face. She declares him the ‘worst’, probably because he just whooped her butt at the video game the same as Ruby’s. He and Ruby giggle.

Ruby asks if Uncle Qrow got in trouble with Ozpin.

Q: Naaah, me and Oz go way back.

I suppose so, asshat. Trust me, I wish he’d gotten in any amount of trouble at all, rather than Ozpin basically having nothing to say to him or about him.

Ruby asks why he’s here then, since Taiyang implied he’d be away on his latest mission for quite a while, and Qrow evades this by simply saying he’s a professional Huntsmen and gets results. Ruby gigglingly calls herself and her team ‘pros’ too, and Yang backs her up, as apparently it’s in the news just how much they saved Vale while he was gone. Qrow corrects this: they almost managed to save Vale from a Grimm attack. On this one point of his, I have no argument. They don’t give out medals for ‘almost’ he says, just as Yang loses another match against him, and Ruby corrects him this time: they do, and it’s called silver. Yang recoups, saying that hey, they bagged Torchwick and crime has been down ever since.

Q: Sure, you may be acting like Huntresses, but you’re not thinking like one. You really think four girls and their friends can end all crime in a kingdom?

I get that this is supposed to be the ‘the main cast are still newbies and aren’t prepared for the real world’ tract, but it’s kind of falling flat since we have a lot more evidence of RWBY actively fighting baddies than we do for Qrow. But I won’t give it a Hypocrisy point yet, although trust me, one is incoming.

Qrow goes on, saying that crime hasn’t just dropped, it’s stopped since Torchwick’s arrest. The complete halt of activity should be looked on as extremely suspicious, which Qrow cites as something Ironwood can’t “get through that thick metal head of his”.

*facepalm* Because Ironwood, like RWBY, has assumed that Torchwick’s arrest meant the problem is totally over and that’s why he pulled all the military warships out of Vale and—oh, wait. That didn’t happen at all. That comparison doesn’t really work, does it, Qrow?”

*sigh* Let it go, Surge.

Y: You…know the General?

Q: Hey, I know everybody to some extent. Remember, you’re talking to a member of the coolest team to ever graduate Beacon.

He pulls out a picture of his old team, Team STRQ (“Stark”, as in stark-white), and this gets Yang’s attention.

As if noticing this, he carefully moves his thumb over the sword-wielding woman’s face, but the other three being Qrow, Taiyang, and what can only be Summer Rose, the woman who Yang obviously recognizes as the one who saved her on the underground train must obviously be Raven.

I have to say, I’d have made Taiyang the leader instead of Summer so that we could have the less-awkwardly named team “turquoise”, which still works with the members’ initials. It’s not like Summer leading this team is going to be important to the plot. But anyway.

Qrow reminisces, Ruby criticizes the previous generation’s fashion senses, and Qrow—

Q: Hey, we looked good. And I have a number of inappropriate stories that’ll back that up.

Dude. These are your nieces. They don’t want to hear such stories and nobody wants to see you offer them.

Qrow then gets up to leave, teasing them about how hanging out with a bunch of kids will cramp his style.

Q: Look, just remember that you’ve got a long way to go. And don’t think for a second that graduating means you’re done. Every day out there is worth a week in this place. You two, you’re gonna go far, but only if you keep learning. If you never stop moving forward.

And then he leaves and we cut back to Winter and Weiss. Weiss is focusing, a large glyph with sword-like runes within it rotating on the ground as she tries to summon something. Winter calls her form excellent, and instructs her to think back on her fallen enemies. Specifically, the ones that forced her to push past who she was and become who she is. Given that Weiss has not won a single 1v1 battle since this story began except for a Boarbatusk, we all know there’s only one enemy that qualifies: the Knight, the enemy from her trailer who she evidently had to defeat before coming to Beacon.

But it’s not working. The glyph is flickering, and Weiss is getting steadily more frustrated with the fact that nothing is emerging from the glyph. It begins to spin rapidly, flickering faster, and eventually she dispels it and declares “I can’t!”

Winter then smacks Weiss upside the head again and orders her to stop doubting herself, and now I’m getting pissed off. This isn’t, as was suggested to me last post, an attempt at anime slapstick, because this one is played completely seriously—no, apparently Winter just does this.

Rooster Teeth, a sibling that strikes their younger charge for not getting something right is abusive. You can stop playing this alongside encouragement from Winter like that makes it less abusive. It’s gross and I want you to stop it.

*Long, deep breath* But they won’t. This won’t be the last time someone who’s supposed to love someone else just gets walloped by them. Now I feel ill.

Weiss whirls and insists she’s trying, but Winter is having none of it.

Wn: If this is what you call ‘trying’, then you have no hope of winning the tournament, let alone succeeding as a Huntress. Why don’t you just move back home? I’m sure Father will give you a nice job as a receptionist.

That’s a really awful thing to say, Winter. Weiss turns away, saying she doesn’t need her dad’s charity, and the sharp attitude vanishes as Winter reminds her that she does need his money. Yeah, she knows all about her dad cutting Weiss off. Winter implies she went through something similar when she chose to join the military.

Weiss confesses she’s not entirely sure about why she was cut off, and has to be reminded that, yes, she’s failed to answer the phone. She then suggests that Weiss stop avoiding her father and call home once in a while.

This is one of those things that will look odd later. This here is implying that, as we’ve known for some time, Weiss’ relationship with her parents, particularly her father, is not the best, but also that Weiss should try working towards building a better one with him. Later on, though, we’re going to find out that Weiss’ dad is a real bastard, who not even Winter could mistake as someone who just needs a chance to work it out with his daughter. So keep that in mind.

Furiously, Weiss tries again at the summoning, producing a whirling glyph, and Winter strides over and puts a hand on her shoulder, advising her that emotions, while powerful, should not be allowed to overcome her.

Wn: It sounds to me like you have two choices. You can either call him, beg for his money back, and explain once more why you want to study at Beacon over Atlas…

She sees the look on Weiss’ face, though, and continues:

Wn: Or, you could continue to explore Remnant, discovering more about the world and, honestly, more about yourself.

Winter then says it’s time for her to leave, and takes Weiss in a sisterly hug. Weiss says it was really good to see her, and Winter says ‘until next time’ which made me snort. The two of them then leave the gazebo, going separate ways, while “Mirror Mirror Part II” plays. The camera pans over to a caterpillar on the ground, who is investigating something odd in its path: a small sword about its own size, made of ice, which shortly vanishes.

We cut to night, in which Weiss waves goodbye to Winter’s airship as it leaves the city, carrying her right out of the story.

Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 21

Weiss’ phone starts to vibrate, and she takes it out and finds her father calling her again. Her finger hovers over the answer button as she hesitates, before deciding to close her Scroll and drop the call. We fade to black and the credits roll.

V3E5, “Never Miss a Beat”

We open on a very, very short match. Russel and Sky from Team CRDL (and it surprises me a lot that Cardin isn’t there, considering he’s very much “the boss”, self-interested, and easily the most capable member of his team) are fleeing from Penny. They’ve taken cover behind some rocks, only for Penny to embed some of her floating knives (which still make beautifully threatening shing-schwick sounds as they move) into them, then lift them right out of the ground with the strings, and slam them back down. Boom, match over. Oobleck announces the winners to be Penny and her partner, Ciel Soleil, who seems to just be there to fill out the roster and keep Penny on-schedule.

Penny thanks her opponents for a wonderful time in that innocently sincere voice of hers, and leaves the field with Ciel. In the stands, Ruby runs off to meet up with and congratulate her. Upon hearing her name called, Penny turns, sees Ruby, and flings herself at her in a flying hug that knocks Ruby down. She then introduces her partner, Ciel, and Ciel, interrupting Ruby when she tries to introduce herself, lists off a series of things she already knows about Ruby in a rather clinical way. Brushing this weird reaction off, Ruby compliments Penny’s brutalizations, but before she can get very far into her gushing about those enviable flying knives, Ciel interrupts again, pointing to her watch and reminding Penny that they need to get going. Penny asks for a minute to talk to Ruby, and Ciel steps away.

R: So, is she your friend, orrr…

P: Sort of. She’s like Blake, but if Blake was ordered to spend time with you.

R: Oh, so, Weiss.

P: Precisely.

Ouch. Ruby asks if Ciel is in on the whole robot thing, and Penny says no, as General Ironwood wants it all hush-hush. Penny mentions an incident with a magnet sticking to her head, which she hid until it could be removed with a large sunhat, causing the two to laugh.

Foreshadowing!

Penny draws in closer after a careful glance at Ciel, and entrusts to Ruby that she actually wants to stay at Beacon. That’s obviously not something that’s going to fly, and Ruby says as much, but Penny claims to have a plan.

Before she can go into it, Ciel steps forward again and tells Penny it has been precisely one minute, hence, time to go. Penny thus bids Ruby goodbye for now. Port’s voice announces over the intercom that the next match will begin soon, so Ruby is off to the stands.

It’s Weiss and Yang’s turn in doubles rounds! Wonder who their opponents are gonna be. Yang, after a slight admonishing about proper form from Weiss, asks what they can expect from their Atlas-based competitors. Weiss basically says they’ll be like the rest of Atlas: strictly regimented, advanced technology, militant style, etc. She’s wrong, as it happens, in a way that implies that either Atlas is not nearly as uptight as she thinks, or that its night life is something to behold:

These are memes.

No, seriously, they are. Flynt Coal, the black guy with the trumpet, is based off of some sort of in-joke at Rooster Teeth from another one of their series. Neon Katt, well…play this.

I’m not sure if I like them or not. They’re one-off characters, of course, but I’m not sure if I should be impressed that Rooster Teeth managed to create entire characters around such thin bases, or pissed off that they’d rather spend time making Nyan Cat into a tournament combatant than give Winter or Sun’s team any screentime or dignity.

Anyway, Flynt immediately gets Weiss’ attention and lets her know that he’s got beef. Her dad’s company, he says, is responsible for running his own dad’s company, in dust sales, out of business. Weiss is sorry to hear that, but he doesn’t buy it. I’ll go ahead and tell you now, these characters won’t be important after this episode, that by the time this fight’s over, he’ll think Weiss is pretty okay. Which just bugs me. Beating them in a fight shouldn’t really change how he sees the Schnee heiress over the struggles his own father’s company went through, but then, it’s not like I’d care to see more time devoted to it. It’s pretty irrational to blame a seventeen-year-old for the actions of a company she doesn’t work for yet anyway.

At any rate, Neon picks up the ball, or rather, swipes it right out from under Yang.

Y: [in defense of Weiss] Hey, why don’t you--!

Nn: ‘Hey, why don’t you!’ That’s what you sound like.

Y: [put off] Uhh--

Nn: Hey, where’d you get your hair extensions?

Y: It’s…just my normal hair.

Nn: [in a tone of voice suggesting her ‘hair extensions’ are...unfortunate] Ooh, really…?

Y: …Yeah, is that a prob--

Nn: You should try roller-blading sometime, it’s super fun! It’d probably take you a while though, since you’re so, ya know…top-heavy.

Y: [Looking down at her own breasts] …Excuse me?!

Oh dear. Ruby’s “Oh, here we go” in the stands implies that she knows exactly what is about to happen, that being that Neon is going to put every effort into annoying Yang to the point of blind rage.

The field arrangements settle, revealing part flooded crags, part sandy dunes, part volcanic fields, and part run-down back alley ruins. All the combatants get ready and Port starts the countdown.

The match starts, and Neon’s off, propelled on her roller skates by her rainbow-powered speed and Flynt’s trumpet, which lets out a huge sonic wave when blown on. Yang is immediately repelled onto the downtown ruins when Neon goes by, while Weiss holds her ground by producing an attracting glyph under her feet. Flynt, seeming satisfied by the challenge, blows his trumpet again. Weiss does something impressive—she launches herself forward, actually dragging herself towards him through his powerful sonic waves with glyphs loaded with gravity dust. Unfortunately, he turns her tactic back on her when he suddenly halts the blast, and Weiss jerks forward under her own power, and he turns, kicking her back past him through a fire crystal.

The music playing here, “Neon”, is…actually one of my favorites.

It’s a very upbeat kind of song, but its lyrics basically insult the listener in a non-stop roast, comparing them unfavorably to the singer in all sorts of ways, but also maintaining a good cheer and telling them to keep going and smile. I think it even incorporates some of the electronic key sounds that play throughout the Nyan Cat meme. You should all listen to it at the attached link while reading this.

Anyway, we cut to the run-down buildings, which look like a construction project halted midway through. Some shotgun shells hit a wall, but not Neon, much to Yang’s frustration, which is amplified when Neon, grinding her way down a metal railing pulls down her eye and makes a face at her. Her agility is something to behold, chanting to herself “never miss a beat” as she skates and grinds her way across the building and more, easily dodging Yang’s shots. Then, she gets back on the ground and zig-zags back and forth before whaling on poor Yang, smacking her back and forth with that nunchuck in her hand.

There’s a pause in her attacks while Yang recovers, unloading a lot of spent shells. Then Neon—I shit you not—cracks her nunchuck like a glowstick and it lights up with a blue ice dust glow. That’s amazing. She dashes towards Yang again, ducking under her arm and swiping at her leg, leaving it encased in ice.

Nn: Haha, look! [slapping her bottom] Now you’re bottom-heavy, too!

Visibly sliding from frustrated to aggravated to angry, Yang slams her leg down on the ground, shattering the ice, but Neon is bearing down on her again, leaving an arm all frozen now. She grinds down another rail, then goes in for another strike, charging Yang and kicking her in the stomach, sending her hurtling into a wall. Neon, complete with a :3 cat smile, tells Yang she should “cool off”.

Nn: Get it? Because you’re angry.

Yang slams her arm against the wall, letting every viewer know she has nanometers left on that fuse of hers.

Meanwhile, Weiss and Flynt are on the volcanic field, and Weiss tries attacking from a distance. She shoots ice shards at Flynt, but he utilizes a magma blast from a nearby vent, using his sonic wave to turn it into a wave of fire that melts the oncoming ice shards. Now, if only it were that simple. No, let me show you how it happens:

No, your eyes aren’t lying to you. Weiss really did pirouette in place four times before launching her icicles, and Flynt really did both twirl in place and do a backflip before sending out his sonic blast.

Now, I got a lot of shit in the first recap of this volume for my complaints about obvious corner-cuts when it comes to animation (yes, I have taken an animation class and I know what keyframes are…). A reader infinitely smarter than me pointed out something simple: what I was complaining about wasn’t even critical to the scene, so if they couldn’t properly animate it in time, there was no reason it had to be in there at all.

*points at that gif* What was even the point of that? There’s “unnecessary combat roll” and then there’s...whatever this is. There’s no reason for them to do that, you could shave both Weiss’ and Flynt’s twirling out of the scene and you’d have the same exact thing, but neater. That’s filler. Why make your animators work things like this into a scene that add exactly zilch to the scene and are lowkey kind of distracting?

Nope. Nope nope nope. I’m giving it the point.

Your Fight Scene Sucks: 32

One for each of them. Ahem. Back to the fight.

Ft: Too bad all that money can’t buy you skill.

Weiss takes offense, and sets her dust chamber to a gray setting. Flynt readies his trumpet, and when he sends out the sonic blast, she counters with a huge wave of wind, spinning out from the tip of Myrtenaster. From there, she conjures several glyphs in a circle around them, using much the same trick as she used on the White Fang Lieutenant by bouncing off of each of them in turn, careening around Flynt and striking him several times before he can react.

Then Flynt utilizes his Semblance, which splits him into four copies of himself, and—oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me. Come on, guys. Blake can make shadow clones, Sun can make clones of light, and now Flynt’s a one-man quartet? Can we try and be a little more original than this and maybe not use the same power three times?

Anyway, Flynt’s sonic waves, which already cover a wide area, are now covering four times as much, putting an end to Weiss’ pinball activities as she’s caught in the huge blast and sent hurtling backwards.

After Port and Oobleck let the crowd know to be oohing and aahing, Flynt pulls his clones back into himself, and advances on Weiss. Just then, we cut to the fight between Yang and Neon. Yang’s usual habit of going berserk and just pounding the enemy into the dirt hasn’t seemed to stick with Neon, who is still continuing to tease and provoke her to the point Yang can’t at all focus and is just begging her to shut the fuck up. Flynt starts walking over to Weiss, stepping on her dropped Myrtenaster so that she can’t retrieve it, but before he finishes her, he notices Yang, being circled by Neon and now enduring taunts about her weight.

Flynt sees an opportunity to take out Yang, which is probably smart as while Yang can’t hit Neon, she seems to be tanking Neon’s hits a bit too well. What is not smart is how, when he turns to attack her with his multiplied sound waves, he steps off of Myrtenaster instead of kicking it away or something.

Your Fight Scene Sucks: 33

Nor is it smart how, instead of just grabbing her now-free sword and attacking Flynt, or even just conjuring a glyph to intervene or something, she tackles him onto a lava geyser, which then erupts underneath them, taking her out of the fight to save Yang. Holy shit.

Your Fight Scene Sucks: 34

Ill Logic: 31

Why did she do that?! That was so unnecessary! She didn’t need to do that at all!

The bell rings, Yang stands shocked, and Ruby and Blake call out in concern for Weiss. Port and Oobleck comment on how Weiss’ stupid, senseless, completely uncalled-for self sacrifice resulted in a double-knockout—except it didn’t. Weiss’ Aura may be depleted—but Flynt survived the blast intact.

So her b/s just now actively put Yang in more danger by forcing her to fight two opponents at once. Nice going, Weiss.

I remember this being about the point where I, in my original viewing in 2015, was starting to get sick of Yang. Volume 2 had given her a lot of focus and let her handle a significant chunk of the Paladin fight herself, and the team fight in Volume 3 had ended by basically throwing her at the enemy and letting her knock them all out. Now, I was looking at Weiss crashing headlong into a wall so that Yang could, again, finish a fight. Not gonna lie, I was pissed.

Not that the situation had changed much. Six years later, I may understand that we are throwing Yang one last big success so we can cut her win streak down to size later on, but I still think we could’ve let her have that moment without having Weiss…do all of that. So I’m staying mad.

Anyway, it’s now Neon and Flynt versus Yang alone. Yang is working at a mere 35 aura points (20 above the minimum allowed level), Neon is halfway down at 50 somehow, despite not taking any hits up until now, and Flynt is at 16, a single Aura point above being eliminated. Meanwhile, Weiss is sitting at zero.

Yang looks at these events and gets pissed! Port comments thusly:

Port: Ooh, it looks like Yang’s angry! And you wouldn’t like her when she’s…

Don’t you dare, bitch.

Port: …Upset.

Thank you.

Yang throws her fists, sending out flaming shells from Ember Celica. I can’t figure out if they’re supposed to be stronger shells that she just didn’t use until now, or if her Semblance can empower her bullets. Flynt sends out his sonic wave again, and Yang is thrown back, but propels herself right back forward with more shots from her fists. Neon moves in, and the two both try to attack each other in the middle of Flynt’s wave. Neither of them land any hits and Yang is eventually forced out.

She’s sent flying, but as she is, she’s sending out more powered-up bullets, which don’t hit Neon or Flynt, but do shatter the ground where they land, and Neon struggles to keep from skating over the busted-up spots. Yang lands and runs back towards Flynt, and he activates his four-man sonic blast. Yang struggles, propelling herself further and further with shotgun blast after shotgun blast. Yang succeeds in forcing the issue, getting close enough to slam her hands over the business end of Flynt’s trumpet, smashing it closed and causing it to blow up in his face, eliminating him.

After that, it turns out Neon’s not too much trouble at all. In trying to avoid Yang’s shots, she’s ended up roller-skating onto the rocky portion of the arena, which doesn’t mesh well with her roller-skates. She’s tripped up when she runs over a rock, wiping out over a set of crags and landing on a fountain that sends her rocketing up into the air—right where Yang can take her out with a single shotgun shell. Yang wins!

Then, after Yang’s settled and her eyes are back to normal, she remembers Weiss, and runs over to her in concern. Weiss is just waking up, not too badly burned, thankfully, and covered in soot.

Yang asks if Weiss is okay, and Weiss responds that she might not be singing for a while, coughing up ash. Yang smiles and says that risky move wasn’t exactly proper form, and Weiss responds with a sarcastic “ha ha”. Aww.

Now that’s ship-worthy material! Anyone else ready to hop on the Freezerburn train? No, just me?”

Meanwhile, Neon is absolutely melting down that they lost the fight. She’s even losing her color Nora-style while she laments that her team is now out…right before getting sparkle eyes and calling Yang and Weiss “super-crazy-awesome! and offering them out to party together sometime. She asks for an affirmative from Flynt, who does his “ehhh actually Weiss is pretty cool” thing. Meanwhile, Ruby and Blake have made it onto the field to congratulate the two while kneeling at the side of Weiss. Everything is good, right?”

Cut to Cinder’s dorm, where Mercury is doing push-ups and Emerald and Cinder are messing around on their Scrolls. Cinder has made an interesting discovery while going through the data on Ironwood’s phone, which includes info on a machine called P.E.N.N.Y. that happens to look a lot like a familiar character.

Cinder says they’ll be making a slight adjustment to the plan, and when Mercury asks what that means, she says that it means things will be even easier than she anticipated. Then we cut to Ozpin’s office, where Ozpin is staring out the window, and we see Qrow arrive in the elevator.

Q: You know, he’s making you look like a fool.

No, Ozpin does that much himself, I’m afraid. Ironwood has literally been nothing but polite and deferential, even when undergoing uncalled-for disdain from his compatriots. Ozpin claims Ironwood’s heart is in the right place, but he’s misguided. And then Qrow makes a quip about not being sure Ironwood even has a heart.

Oh, ha ha. Get it, because he’s based on the Tin Man, who had no heart? I’m gonna revisit this remark a few posts from now, Qrow. Be ready.

Qrow then asks if Ozpin has chosen his “guardian” yet. Ozpin remarks cryptically that maidens “choose themselves” and that he simply believes he’s found the right candidate.

*slow blink* The difference being…? Guys, I cut a lot of these dialogues out, but a lot of what Ozpin says is just like this: words without any particular reason to say them. Whether he’s “found the right candidate” is about the same interrogative as the one posed by Qrow about whether he’s “chosen [his] guardian”. He could’ve just said “yes”, and spoiler alert, guys—maidens don’t “choose themselves”, either.

Oz: Ever since the day I met her, I’ve had a feeling she would be the one. She’s strong, intelligent, caring… But most importantly, she’s ready.

As Ozpin describes this unnamed woman, we see Pyrrha going up the CCT in the elevator, a satisfied smile playing on her face.

The episode ends.

Counts:

Jaune: 16
It Was Right There: 4
Fauxminism: 6
Hypocrisy: 14
Ice Cream Queens: 0
Reliable Leaders: 10 + 2
- Prowling Wolf Fallacy: 2
Threatening Enemies: 4
Love to Be a Part of It Someday: 21
Your Fight Scene Sucks: 34 + 13
- Evisceration Evasion: 13
Ill Logic: 31
Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Veil: 11 + 2
- Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge: 1
- Band-Aid Brigade: 1
RSVP: 25
Road to Nowhere: 7
Y.A.S. Queen: 4
Rooster Tease: 5
LuLaRwe: 2