New Challengers...

"New Challengers..." is the thirtieth episode of RWBY and the second episode of Volume 3. It premiered for Rooster Teeth sponsors on October 31st, 2015 and for the public on November 1st, 2015.

Summary
Picking up immediately from "Round One", Team JNPR fights Team BRNZ of Vacuo's Shade Academy in their first match of the Vytal Festival combat tournament. The combat area is split evenly between two biomes, the first a heavily wooded area, the other mountainous terrain.

After a brief melee at the center of the arena, JNPR are quickly forced to retreat and stay in cover by May Zedong, who has taken up position in the trees with her sniper rifle. Jaune Arc orders his team to spread out and keep moving in order to evade May's fire as the rest of Team BRNZ press the attack.

Nolan Porfirio manages to best Lie Ren in close-quarters combat and momentarily incapacitates him using his electrified baton. Nolan then attempts to do the same to Nora Valkyrie, but is surprised to find out that her Semblance allows her to produce and channel electrical energy directly to her muscles. Nora absorbs Nolan's attack and sends him flying with her hammer. With help from Pyrrha Nikos, Nora reaches the top of the mountain and absorbs the lightning from an electrical storm that conveniently forms overhead. Nora destroys May's cover with her grenades and hits the other three members of BRNZ with a devastating attack from her hammer.

Jaune attempts to lead his teammates into finishing BRNZ off with codenamed team-attacks, "Flower Power" (for Ren and Nora) and "Arkos" (for himself and Pyrrha), but his teammates don't understand his instructions, much to his frustration. After failing to explain his gameplan to his teammates, he simply orders Nora to hit BRNZ with her hammer. She promptly proceeds to do so, knocking them well clear of the arena and winning the match.

The next match is between Team NDGO of Shade and Team SSSN, representing Mistral's Haven Academy. Weiss Schnee initially cheers for Neptune, but after seeing him attempting to flirt with the members of NDGO, quickly changes her allegiance. The terrain for the match is half a sun-baked desert wasteland reminiscent of Vacuo's terrain, and half a tropical ocean biome centered round a large shipwreck - much to the horror of Neptune, who has a crippling fear of water.

As the match begins, Neptune scrambles to the top of the opposing team's terrain to get away from the water, to the confusion of both teams. In the ensuing melee, NDGO quickly gains the advantage as Dew Gayl throws Sage Ayana clear out of the ring by creating a huge gust of wind and dust devils. With help from Neptune, Sun Wukong manages to defeat Octavia Ember with his nunchucks, evening out the match to 3-on-3.

Scarlet David bests Nebula Violette in a sword duel atop the mast of the shipwreck. He also immobilizes Gwen Darcy using a grappling shot from his flintlock pistol. Sun attempts to take out Dew by throwing a pair of coconuts, but she deflects his attack onto Scarlet, hitting him in his groin, which exhausts his Aura and knocks him out of the match.

As the remaining three members of NDGO regroup in the ocean, Sun finally gets Neptune to gingerly approach the water's edge. Using electricity from his weapon, he electrifies all three opponents in one fell swoop, ending the match.

Meanwhile, Qrow Branwen has been watching the matches from a bar in Vale, but is utterly unimpressed by both JNPR and SSSN's performances, calling the latter "a mess". When a distinctive airship passes by, Qrow takes note and drunkenly leaves the bar, offhandedly commenting that this was the fight he was waiting for.

Back at Amity Colosseum, Weiss catches sight of the approaching aircraft and says with seeming awe and admiration, "She's here..."

Trivia

 * Team NDGO was created by a group of fans who backed Rooster Teeth's Lazer Team Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. Grace Bono, Paige Campbell, Claire Hogan and Mylissa Zelechowski voiced their characters and are also listed as "Team NDGO Character Consultants" in the credits of the episode. Kim Newman and Kate Warner provided additional spoken lines for the characters Nebula and Dew.
 * Additionally, the Bartender is voiced by Markus Horstemeyer, who was also an Indiegogo backer who received the perk to have a voice over role in RWBY.
 * Nora's Semblance is shown to be the ability to produce and channel electricity to her muscles, giving her increased strength and speed. This is a likely reference to the Norse deity Thor, who was the god of lightning, thunder and storms.
 * At the 5:56 mark it appears a cell phone went off during recording
 * It is revealed that Neptune is afraid of water. This is an ironic reference to the Roman deity Neptune, who was the god of the sea.
 * The team attacks that Jaune named are references, much like Team RWBY's team attack names from "Painting the Town..."
 * Flower Power comes from a joke that was made during a RWBY panel at RTX 2014. A fan had joked about "Flower Power" in relation to Ren's guns, StormFlower, and Monty Oum went on to joke that Ren is a pot-smoking hippie.
 * Arkos is the name of the the fan ship of Pyrrha and Jaune.
 * Whilst May Zedong of Team BRNZ is seen running in the opposite direction to her teammates in this episode, at the end of the previous episode, "Round One", she is shown running forward with her team.
 * Sun's hand raise and line regarding Neptune ("Ignore him, for he... Yeah, he's dumb.") is a callback to Neptune's gesture and line regarding Sun ("Ignore him for he knows not what he says.") in Volume 2 Chapter 6 Burning the Candle.