Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-24278127-20131211040136/@comment-3146930-20131211044253

Ruby's speed seems to manifest itself in a few ways from what we have seen. For example, in her trailer when the Beowolves first attack her, she completely vanishes before appearing high in the air. She later does this again when Weiss if getting ready to attack a Beowolf, only for Ruby to seemingly materialize out of nowhere in front of her attack. Even before that when Ruby is trying to impress Weiss, she runs at a fast speed so she was in front of her, somewhat confusing Weiss as to how she moved as fast as she did.

Blake's Semblance works differently however. She isn't moving at super speed to create or shadow images (her Semblance is officially called "Shadow" in the commentary). While it looks like an after-image, it is actually a semi-solid illusion of Blake that protects ad somewhat hides her from her enemies. As stated above, it is like a short range Shadow-clone technique from Naruto.

Weiss speed also works differently. Because Dust is Energy according to Weiss, it is able to use kinetic energy to move objects like Glynda did in the pilot. Weiss in the series seems to use a similar style, except in her case the Glyphs seem to act like a Attract/Repel platform. In other words, she can use it to push or pull things, including herself. This is how she is able to move so fast in the series. In the trailers however, a lot of Weiss' abilities seem to work differently so maybe it was changed as development for the show continued.

Lastly, I'm kind of surprised Speed was the Semblance you pointed out. I say this because Glynda, Cinder, and Weiss have all been seen using Glyphs as their main form of attack. Yes we have seen all of them use it in different ways, but they are all the same Semblance at a basic level.