RWBY V8 C12

## Plot

This episode starts with Atlas airships being taken down by Teryx Grimm, except the one with Ren, Nora, and Jaune in it. The tail end and the bottom part of the Grimm whale is still on Atlas. Has anyone else noticed how insanely easy it is to steal airships of any kind on this show? Volumes 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, etc., had scenes of someone in a stolen airship, or a throwaway line or scene implying that they stole it off screen. Ironwood is waiting with the remaining Ace Ops at the academy entrance. His eyes still look lifeless. His two pistols are plugged into a bigger gun. Someone shoots one of the drones near where the bomb is being loaded onto an airship. When Vine sighs, he tells Harriet that he's just retracing the steps that led them here. Ironwood gets a security alert about Qrow and Robyn in the academy hangar. The Ace Ops leave to deal with them, as Winter arrives to stay with the general. He hopes she won't try to talk him out of this. She knows that's not possible. Penny shows up alone, which surprises Ironwood. He expected at least some resistance from her friends. She doesn't want anyone else to die. Winter cuffs her. When Ironwood tells her that she's doing the right thing, it's revealed that it's really Emerald using her Semblance, which she also used to hide their airship, Jaune, Oscar, Ren, and Nora. She does a back flip and kicks Ironwood in the chin, which makes him drop the gun. She catches it and uses her Semblance to disappear from view. Meanwhile, the Ace Ops get to the hangar and see Qrow and Robyn destroying security drones. Marrow freezes them before they can attack. Another new song, and a short but epic 6v1 fight ensues. I guess it's technically 5v1 since Emerald isn't seen again until after the fight. The reason that it's 5v1 and not 4v2 is because Winter reveals to Ironwood that she's betrayed him. She helps the others during the fight with various glyphs and dust. *It's okay In time you will grow But that doesn't mean You're not already whole Mistakes that you've made Will stay in the past Redemption is yours if you follow that path Oh, just hold on Stay tough Be strong And hit stuff* As the last line makes clear, this sounds like a Nora song, and the line about redemption could be about Emerald, or even Winter. Also, it's my personal head canon now that Winter treats Oscar as an honorary little brother. After all, he rides on her Manticore summon with her, she saves him with a gravity glyph when the general stops the summon with his bare hands, and she deals the final blow to break Ironwood's Aura and knock him out before he can hit Oscar. Qrow tells the Ace Ops that they didn't want a fight. Robyn says they didn't want to drop Atlas either, but they've all had to make some tough calls. So by the end of the volume, Atlas *will* drop out of the sky… but it's an intentional choice made by the heroes, and they plan to get everyone to safety before that happens. Winter takes the cuffs off of Emerald and tells the others to move to phase 2. We flashback to the end of the previous episode as we see everyone formulate the plan. They've been so worried about keeping the vault closed that they never considered using the Staff of Creation to save everyone in Atlas and Mantle, including Penny. Weiss gets a message from Winter. We see the same moment from her and Marrow's perspective as they ride the elevator. Winter takes the cuffs off of Marrow and tells him that she's not arresting him, and she only punched him so he wouldn't get killed. Ironwood has to be stopped, but they need help. He sees her send a message to her sister, which is something she admits she should've done a long time ago. When the elevator doors open, they see Qrow and Robyn. The moody animation is… well, a mood, at least I think it is. I've never been very good with Internet culture, or memes, or vocabulary. Back inside the Schnee dining room, they go over what they know and what problems they have. This reminds me of Amelia taking charge and the team having to deal with multiple problems at once for the first few episodes of *Power Rangers Cosmic Fury*: Ollie turning evil, Zayto being stranded in space, the rest of the team losing their powers, and then being stranded in space for multiple episodes as Earth is invaded and taken over. Jaune is amping Penny's Aura again. If they open the vault, she'll terminate, but using the staff is the only way to get everyone in the kingdom to safety. If Ironwood gets wind of any of this, he'll blow up Mantle. Once the staff creates anything else, Atlas will fall. The city has enough natural gravity dust to keep it from plummeting immediately, but no one will want to be around when it touches down. Jaune suggests using the staff to teleport everyone to safety. Oscar says it's not a magic wand. They can't just wave it and make their problems go away, plus there's the spirit inside the relic to consider. He's quite a character. As a craftsman, he can make anything, but only if you explain to him how to do it. He'll need blueprints as a reference, and preferably real world examples to show him. Whitley has already gone through the city layouts for the failed SDC evacuation. Those could help. Ruby, Ozpin, and Weiss all smile at him. Aw! Speaking of which, Weiss already has a plan for dealing with Ironwood, and it involves Emerald. That's all of phase 1, and we go back to the present as they talk about phase 2. The real Penny goes to the vault with team RWBY. Klein is piloting their airship, and Willow and Whitley are also onboard. Oscar explains that he blasted a hole through the bottom of Atlas, and he doubts they've had time for repairs, so Ruby can use her Semblance to get them to the vault from there. Sorry Blake. Again. Yang doesn't seem to find the experience weird. And that, Weiss, is how Oscar ended up down in the slums. Just, the casual way he says it is so hilarious. These characters are hardly phased by anything anymore, and I love it. I also love how they're using basically all of their resources and things they've learned throughout the volume to get this done, with the only hiccup being the villains. Seriously, it's weird that Winter and Marrow didn't mention that. Yes, Ironwood and his bomb are the more immediate threat, and you know where those targets actually are, but what about the villains? I wonder if Emerald ever told them offscreen, "Hey, don't worry about Mercury and Tyrian, they left for Vacuo. Also, Hazel switched sides too, but he died fighting Salem, so that's a bummer. I have no idea where the others are." Couldn't she pretend to still be on their side and just call Cinder or Neo on her Scroll? Penny opens the vault door, and the others rush in. It's a grassy meadow area with flowers this time. Ruby grabs the staff, which freezes time. The spirit in the staff is a buff blue man with golden chains named Ambrosius. He's voiced by Valentine Stokes, who did a fantastic job. A lot of people thought he was Troy Baker at first. Ambrosius is based on Merlin; A.K.A. Ambrosius Aurelianus, the Blue Fairy, and probably a bunch of other people/stuff, like Ambrosia from ancient Greek myths. He's glad he's being used for something else, since he thinks a floating city is pedestrian. He tells the girls that he can't bring the dead back to life. Which makes sense, since he, like Jinn, was created by the God of Light, who specifically said during The Lost Fable that bringing the dead back to life **was not** creation. When Ruby tells Ambrosius that Penny isn't a typical girl, he examines her and realizes that she's a robot, and there's something eating away at her. They have her schematics. Ruby asks him to make a new version of her, using only her currently existing robotic parts. When he asks about the odd wording, she explains that if they asked him to make an exact copy of Penny, she'd still have the virus, and even if they asked him to make a copy of her without the virus, she'd cease to exist once they used the staff to make something else, and they'd like to keep her around longer than that. If he used only her existing robotic parts, he'd take the virus with them. After that, all that would be left that he didn't mess with would be Penny's Aura/soul. He can't destroy that part of her, since it's against the rules, but he wouldn't be destroying her. Her soul is who she is. As Yang explains with her arm, the mechanical parts are just extra. None of them, including Ambrosius, know what would happen to a soul left without a complete body, and Ruby tells him that he'll just have to get creative. In a Ship of Theseus moment, he wonders how much of the old Penny would be his work, and how much would be her just coming up to the surface. He says this is all very exciting and dangerous. He doesn't know what the results are going to be, but Weiss says they don't have any other options. They believe in Penny. He does what they ask in a very Disney *Beauty and the Beast* way. When they look, there are two Pennys. According to the robot vision, one of them appears to be made of Aura. Lots of people have been confused by this, so let me try to explain it in layman's terms. Basically, the people who use the relics are bound to certain rules, but I personally don't think that the same thing applies to the spirits in the relics, at least to an extent. Sure, time may be frozen when he does it, but Ambrosius makes an eyeglass for himself to use to examine Penny, and then makes it disappear just as easily. However, Atlas doesn't start falling until after he makes the new robot Penny and time resumes. It's sort of like the girls "tricked" him into making a human body for Penny's Aura/soul, and the rules determined that it was something he made for himself, which is why she doesn't disappear when something else is made using the staff. It's sort of like when Jinn gave Ruby knowledge freely in the volume 6 finale. Ambrosius disappears, and time resumes. Atlas starts shaking. Jaune, Nora, Ren, Oscar, and Emerald try to talk to everyone in the kingdom, but before they can tell everyone not to panic about Atlas falling, they're cut off due to an unseen Watts. Jacques asks Winter if it's true that Atlas is falling. She's already put Ironwood in the cell next to his. She confirms that it is, but they're going to use the staff to get everyone to safety. They'll come back for the general and Jacques, but when he thanks Winter, she tells him that it was Weiss's decision to save him. Penny's Aura/soul is in the human, flesh and blood version of her… and the virus is in the robot version of her that Ambrosius made, and Penny watches in horror as it freaks out and terminates. When Ruby asks her if she's okay, she hugs her and the rest of the girls. Weiss calls Ambrosius again so they can start the evacuation. Yang asks him if he can make a bunch of doorways in Atlas that open at a single spot in Vacuo. He can… he just needs the coordinates and specs for each door, an explanation for bending space and time to account for the much greater traffic on one side, and a single point of exit on the other. They need to funnel everyone through a central location first. He asks where the central location is. Yang, the only one who has been in a vault before, says it's a place like this. Wherever the vaults are, they're clearly not part of Remnant. However, they *are* accessible from a specific point in Remnant, but only if you know the right way in. Ambrosius tells the girls that they're either smarter or much more foolish than they realize. Weiss pulls up a reference for him. It's the pneumatic tube system that connects Mantle to Atlas. He creates portals all over Atlas and Mantle that seem to lead to some sort of pocket dimension, which all lead to a single portal that will take them to Vacuo. Joanna goes through a portal, sees the dimension on the other side, and heads back. So… did the girls just create a whole new dimension? Because I think the girls just created a whole new dimension. Penny sees the robot version of herself that Ambrosius made disintegrate. Before he leaves again, he ominously tells the girls not to fall while they're in their central location. **Me:** (Remembers what happens at the end of the opening, that there are still two more episodes left, that Kerry said volume 9 would have a "detour" on the way to Vacuo, and what the description of *The Girl Who Fell Through The World* fairy tale is so far). "Well, fu–" Why can't we just have nice, wholesome things with no strings attached CRWBY? Is such sacred lightheartedness really too much to ask? Weiss gives the staff to Penny, and it shrinks, making it slightly more compact. Now they go to Vacuo, and hope that they've thought of everything. They have not, as we see Cinder at one of the portals.