Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-10390252-20130728185452/@comment-4830106-20130801132727

TheNewProtagonist wrote: This one's called "True Power".

A Yang-centric story where the Ember Celica go missing, which in turn reveals a secret about her: without the gun gauntlets, she is physically powerless. Oh, she still has the moves and junk, but the gauntlets are Dust augmented to give her superhuman surges of power ala Dragonball Z; so without them, she won't be punching anyone like she did Junior back in her trailer.

This would go into her backstory as to why she likes fighting so much. The thrill of getting in somebody's face and knocking him halfway down the street soon became an addiction after her first fight with the Ember Celica and consequently the Ember Celica became a crutch.

And so we find the one thing that makes the infinately confidant Yang Xiao Long vulnerable; Powerlessness. Not having the Ember Celica has brought her back to the fear, the hesitance of fighting. So much so that when the Grim start attacking the city, she's frozen solid. The girls try to snap her out of it, but eventually Blake and Weiss give up and go on to fight, Ruby soon following them only to leave Yang with this: "I know you think you need those things to be strong. But to me... You'll always be the strongest person in the world."

We now have an introspective moment with Yang as she thinks back to all the times she protected Ruby from trouble. Before Hunting, before Beacon or Signal... before the Ember Celica.

Suddenly Yang catches wind of a this-just-in showcasing team RWBY getting thrashed by a sort of humanoid Grim, using Ember Celica. This Horrifies Yang to a point where she comes to a decision of rushing into town to help her friends. she may be powerless, but goddammit she has to do something.

What follows is a tense fight scene where the girls are fighting a - more or less - brutal version of Yang. The only one capable of even keeping up is Ruby since she has the speed over Blake and Weiss. But even she's knocked down repeatedly. The Grim hovers over her, about to finish her, Yang intervenes, says something badass (probably along the lines of "get away from my sister!") and with all the strength she can muster, punches the creature away a few feet, her eyes changing red. Ruby points this out as Yang comes to a silent realization that back in the day, it was never about being strong, it was about protecting what important to her no matter what.

The Ember Celica were never a crutch, but a tool to harness the true power inside Yang. And it's with this new resolve that she goes into her "super white wash mode" and desroys the Grim in one punch.

The girls rejoice now that that they have their blonde brawler back and better than ever. I like it, haven't seen many Yang Character-Dev ideas so far. I just remember that Monty (in his infinite wisdom) stated that helplessness was supposed to be Ruby's big insecurity, but I suppose it could work with Yang as well. And I think Weiss and Blake are actually faster than Ruby, but just not as tough, so your fight scene could still work.