Board Thread:Episode Discussion/@comment-30530552-20180116183349

Welcome back to Where From Here, the penultimate WFH thread for the Volume. And when people say things really picked up...they mean it...I was lucky to get the thread for this episode after a lack of covering significant combat sequences and stuck with somewhat slow episodes. Let’s review why this, barring the yet to be seen finale, is my favorite episode of the Volume.


 * The episode opens with RY & EM starting their 2v2, where Merc tries to disarm Ruby, and gets headbutted for his trouble, Ozpin-style. So that training session did  pay off for her, since Merc was enough of a chump to get hit by it.
 * Nora believes Jaune has unlocked his Semblance, and he explains that it feels like a form of Aural transference, which is effective enough that Weiss starts to wake up, healed and her Aura being replenished with time. Nora tries to stay and defend them, that is, until she sees Ren, Oz-car, and Qrow getting their asses handed to them by Hazel & Leo, so she steps in to attack Hazel, ends up getting electrocuted, and blasts him through the wall into the courtyard, empowered by her Semblance. We also learn in the process Hazel’s Semblance is the ability to ignore pain entirely, though the full logistics are still unclear.
 * Adam and Blake face off, Blake bringing her army and the Mistral police to arrest him. Adam attempts to blow up the whole school with his bombs, only to find Ilia disarmed them while he monologued. Adam becomes a bull that only knows how to charge, Blake taking a note from Nora and booping him on the head after dodging his sword slash with a shadow clone, opening up the WF battle in the courtyard. Hazel is dragged back into the hall by Weiss’ Queen Lancer summon, empowered enough to use it after Jaune worked his power.
 * Blake follows into the hall, only to see the rest of RWBY in the hall and calling to Yang specifically. Their reunion is short-lived though, as Yang is tasked to confront the villains in the vault, ejecting her arm in the process to escape Merc’s grasp, Weiss covering her escape. Ruby nods to Blake, who turns and goes back into the fray in the courtyard.
 * Spring and Fall face off in the vault, with Cinder speculating the previous Spring Maiden’s [seeming] trust in Raven was a mistake, which was enough for Raven to initiate the battle. As they fight, Raven points out Cinder’s Grimm limb isn’t protected by Aura, and calls her a monster, Cinder retorting with a similar statement. They continue to fight, their blades continually breaking and being quickly replaced, the sword-fight then escalates into a battle between their Maiden powers, the impact between a gigantic sword of burning coal + fire against another of ice + lightning + wind begins destabilizing the cavern and shaking the entire campus with the raw power.
 * Raven almost gets her powers and/or Aura stolen by Cinder’s Grimm arm when she gets pinned to the lift-gate, but Raven freezes Cinder’s feet in place, which sets her up to get hit by a giant rock stalactite. As the battle reaches its climax, the opponents face off on the falling stalactites in the cavern as a new song sung by Casey plays in the background during their battle. They both hit the ground, after which both their Auras shimmer and break, Cinder clearly tired out and Raven still having some energy left. Raven tells Cinder she should’ve remembered to watch her back. Cinder half-realizes what this means, turning just in time for Vernal to distract Cinder with one final laser/gun-shot, turning her back on Raven, who goes up right behind her and hits her point-blank with a blast of lightning to the face, shattering her mask and sending her flying into the abyss. As Cinder falls, her body is frozen solid and disappears from sight; much like Neo in Volume 3. (Speaking of which, where the hell is she?)
 * <p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#efefef;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Raven thanks Vernal a final time, closing the dead girl’s eyes in respect, then opens the door to the Relic, which leads to a dream-like desert landscape, where an indistinct shape placed on a pedestal is visible. Raven is about to enter the vault, only to hear a shotgun sound and turn in time to see a one-armed Yang land and stand to confront her.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:#efefef;font-weight:400;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;">Alrighty then...discussion for one last time before the Volume’s finale! <ac_metadata title="Where From Here - V5C13 - My Semblance Must Be Karma"> </ac_metadata>