Players and Pieces

"Players and Pieces" is the eighth episode of RWBY, which premiered on the Rooster Teeth website on September 5th, 2013.

Summary
Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee are hanging onto a large mass of feathers fluttering in the wind, with Weiss berating Ruby on how the chain of events that led up to their current predicament were bad ideas. As the two continue to argue, Ruby suggests jumping, to which Weiss objects. However, she then realizes that Ruby already jumped, resulting in her cursing Ruby. As Ruby falls, Jaune Arc collides with her in midair, and the two of them land in a nearby tree.

Yang Xiao Long and Blake Belladonna are watching everything transpire from the ground. They then notice an Ursa come stumbling out of the forest and collapse on the ground with Nora Valkyrie riding on its back. Lie Ren soon catches up, exhausted. Nora quickly makes her way to the chess pieces and delightfully takes a white rook chess piece before Ren angrily calls her back.

Suddenly, Pyrrha Nikos arrives with the Death Stalker on her tail. Yang explodes with anger, due to all of the commotion. Soon afterward, the group notices Weiss hanging on the claw of a giant Nevermore, and she calls out to Ruby, asking how she could leave her. Soon, she falls from the Grimm, though it's unknown if she let go or lost her grip. In an attempt to gain her favor, Jaune jumps off the tree and catches her, although his plan quickly backfires since he failed to take the rest of the fall into account. This ultimately results in him landing face-first on the ground, and then being used as a landing pad by Weiss right after.

As Pyrrha crash-lands in front of them, Yang sarcastically says now that the entire team has gathered at the location, they can die together. Ruby decides to take out the Death Stalker on her own, but her attacks prove ineffective against its thick armor. Realizing this, she puts Crescent Rose away and flees. As Yang tries to get to her, the Nevermore fires its spear-like feathers at the two, one of which stabs into Ruby's cape, pinning her to the ground.

As the Death Stalker catches up to Ruby, it raises its stinger to strike her. Yang helplessly reaches for Ruby, unable to get to her; however, Weiss speeds past Yang and uses ice Dust to freeze its stinger in place. She criticizes Ruby for being childish, dim-witted, and hyperactive, but she admits that she herself has been difficult as well. Since they must work together to come out of the initiation alive, Weiss promises to be nicer, as long as Ruby stops trying to show off. Ruby counters that she is simply trying to prove herself, receiving an assuring reply from Weiss that she is fine.

The group eventually realizes that they should seize the artifacts and escape to the summit, instead of fighting the Grimm. However, the Death Stalker and the Nevermore give chase, forcing the group to separate into pairs and take cover in the ruins. Nora creates a diversion for the Nevermore while the others run further into the ruins. When the Death Stalker approaches Nora, Blake and Ren hold it off, while Weiss picks Nora up, propelling herself with a glyph.

The eight students run to a bridge, and Ren and Pyrrha both take a few shots at the Death Stalker, before following the others across the bridge. However, as they try to cross, the Nevermore destroys a section of the bridge, separating them into two groups. As Jaune notices Blake, Pyrrha, and Ren struggling against the Death Stalker on their own, he points out to Nora that they need help. The gap in the bridge, however, is far too wide. To assist him, Nora transforms her weapon Magnhild from grenade launcher to hammer and catapults Jaune over the gap by slamming her hammer on the other end of the broken bridge. She then stands on her hammer's head and creates an explosion to launch herself over the gap.

Nora lands a hit on the Death Stalker's head and launches herself backward before it can sting her, accidentally bumping into Blake and knocking her off the bridge. Blake uses Gambol Shroud's chainsickle form to latch onto a piece of the ruins, swinging herself into the air near the Nevermore. She then uses her Semblance, jumping off a clone to get on the Nevermore's head, before running down its back and repeatedly slashing at it. She then jumps off, landing on the ruins next to Ruby and then hopping over to her partner, Yang.

With Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang now standing on the center of the ruins, the Nevermore swoops in for the kill. It is met with a hail of fire from the quartet and their weapons. However, the Nevermore is unaffected by the projectiles and slams into the ruins, which forces the group to move to a higher section. As Ruby comes up with a plan to take out the Nevermore, Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren engage the Death Stalker. Jaune and Pyrrha force the Death Stalker's pincers apart, and Ren climbs onto its stinger and begins to shoot it.

When Pyrrha launches Miló into one of its eyes, while the Death Stalker swings its tail and throws Ren onto a nearby wall. Jaune notices the stinger is close to falling off and prompts Pyrrha to sever it, causing the stinger to fall and impale the Death Stalker's head. Jaune then instructs Nora to propel herself off Pyrrha's shield, allowing Nora to smash the stinger further into the Death Stalker's head with her hammer before firing a round into its cranium, which kills the beast. The blast also destroys the rest of their half of the bridge, launching Pyrrha and Jaune through the air. As Pyrrha flies over the Death Stalker, her javelin floats from its eye back into her hand.

Yang keeps firing Ember Celica at the Nevermore, until it flies toward her with its beak open. She leaps in, holding its beak open, and fires five rounds down its throat. She then jumps out as it crashes into the cliff. Weiss freezes its tail feathers to the ruins, locking it in place. Next, Yang and Blake hold both ends of the ribbon connecting Gambol Shroud between two stone pillars, creating a crude slingshot. Ruby hops onto the ribbon with Crescent Rose, and Weiss uses a large glyph to hold her in place. Weiss muses about how only Ruby could have come up with such an idea.

Ruby then cocks Crescent Rose, and Weiss' glyph releases her, launching her off the ribbon at the Nevermore. Ruby fires multiple shots to accelerate herself even more and hooks the Nevermore's neck with her scythe. Weiss then creates an entire column of glyphs up the cliffside, allowing Ruby to run vertically, speeding herself up by firing even more shots while dragging the Grimm with her. She eventually rends the creature's head from its shoulders at the summit. As everyone else watches in wonder, the Nevermore's headless body falls to the ground.

Back at Beacon, Ozpin forms the teams. The first team consists of Cardin Winchester, Russel Thrush, Dove Bronzewing, and Sky Lark, forming Team CRDL, pronounced "Cardinal", led by Cardin. The next team is Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren, forming Team JNPR, pronounced "Juniper", with Jaune serving as its leader. Finally, Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang form Team RWBY, pronounced "Ruby", with Ruby leading the team. Afterwards, Ozpin notes that it seems this will be an interesting year.

Elsewhere, Roman Torchwick finishes talking to someone over a phone and sighs in frustration. He lights a cigar and pays a White Fang member for the delivery of a case of Dust crystals to him. As the camera zooms in on a map of Vale that he has written on, Roman notes that he is going to need more men.

Trivia

 * Despite "The Emerald Forest" hinting at the appearance of the Nevermore with a single large feather, it is never explained how Weiss and Ruby came to ride it at the beginning of this episode or get on it in the first place, besides Weiss commenting that it was Ruby's "terrible idea".
 * Blake's Faunus heritage was hinted as far back as this episode. At around the 0:57 mark Yang is waving her hand on Blake's face asking if she heard her; Blake merely looks to the sky and points up as her bow twitches, likely from hearing Ruby's scream as she dropped from the Nevermore.
 * The song playing from 7:52 to 10:36 is the episode version of "Red Like Roses Part II". The RWBY: Volume 1 Soundtrack has a longer version without the instrumental lead-up.
 * Both Nora and Ruby had the idea to hitch a ride on a Grimm.
 * After being saved by Weiss, Ruby whispered "normal knees" to herself; a reference to the first episode where Ruby expressed her desire to be treated like a normal person (with normal knees), after Yang said that Ruby was "the bee's knees".
 * After defeating the Death Stalker, Jaune's team lands in order of their team name: Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and then Ren.
 * Pyrrha's three-point landing pose is identical to the one assumed by Agent Carolina from another Rooster Teeth series, Red vs. Blue. Jen Brown, the voice for Pyrrha, also provides the voice for Carolina.
 * This episode was first seen as a preview at PAX Prime '13 in Seattle.
 * According to Miles and Kerry, the battle in this episode went through several rewrites. In one version, the Nevermore creates a massive whirlwind, which sends the students and the Death Stalker into trees. Jaune ends up using his shield like a parachute to throw himself between Pyrrha and the Death Stalker's pincers to save her. Another version included a giant Boarbatusk.
 * The symbols wrapped around the pedastals displaying the chess pieces are the same as are used on the Bionicle Mask of Creation and Control.