RWBY V7 C13

## Plot

The episode starts with Jaune telling Neo to give up because they have her outnumbered, but she easily outmaneuvers them all. Oscar holds her legs down, allowing Ren to hit her, but she breaks into glass, having used her semblance to get away. Now they have to run from Atlas soldiers thanks to Ironwood ordering them to be arrested. Meanwhile, Penny and Winter fight Cinder, who drops lines about power and hunger that remind me of volume 3. Jessica Nigri, Taylor McNee, and Elizabeth Maxwell all give great voice performances this episode, especially when it comes to screaming and yelling. They're the VAs for Cinder, Penny, and Winter. Cinder takes the fight outside. Winter loses one of her swords. She summons a Manticore, but Cinder destroys it and depletes her Aura with a fireball. Penny saves her instead of going after Cinder. Winter tells her that her life doesn't matter, but Penny says she disagrees. Oscar falls behind while running away from the soldiers and gets lost. Luckily, Nora pulls him into a room and saves him before he's caught. However, it's clear from her gait that it's really Neo in disguise, and Oscar barely avoids being stabbed by her, and loses the relic to her again. Jaune went back for him, and Neo is easily able to get past him. She blocks all of Ren's bullets, and when he tries to jump at her, she changes her eyes back to Nora's and makes a scared face, throwing him off guard and allowing her to get past him. Jaune tries to go after her, but she changes into an Atlas officer and points him out to the soldiers. They're forced to fall back, allowing Neo to leave with the relic. When Nora looks back at Ren, she sees that he's crying. Fria wakes up and sees Cinder talking to her, and she wonders what she was waiting for. Cinder claims she was waiting for her, but before she can kill her, Fria grabs her Grimm hand and says she was waiting here because she had a job to do. She easily blasts her back and unleashes her full power, which makes a blizzard that starts to freeze Cinder's Grimm arm, so she leaves. Penny and Winter get back and see it. That's the power of a fully realized maiden. Winter tries to get in, but it's so cold that it freezes her glove off and turns her fingers red. Penny jumps inside instead. In the training room, Oscar apologizes to the others for losing the relic, and Jaune tells him not to be sorry. Ren thinks they weren't ready to become Huntsmen. Nora tries to tell him that's not true, but he snaps and says that if it isn't, then why aren't they holding the relic, which is a statement that noticeably upsets Oscar. Now Salem has the lamp, Ironwood has the staff, and they have nothing. Suddenly, their scrolls work again thanks to Pietro. He, Maria, Yang, and Blake are securing their getaway airship. Jaune, Nora, and Ren prepare to hold off soldiers until they get there, but Oscar has slipped away. He tells them to go on without him. There's something that he needs to do alone. Penny asks Fria if she's okay. She had a job to do. She was supposed to protect the power of the maiden until she was ready, but worries that she may have lost track of time. She's ready now though. She knows that if she transfers her Aura to someone else, she'll be gone. She may have a hard time remembering things, but she remembers that. She stops the blizzard, and Penny catches her. The whole room is covered in ice, including the Aura transfer machine. Fria asks Penny what her name is, and if she's the one. Also, cool little detail I noticed, but some of the synthetic skin from the insides of Penny's hands are gone, showing that she's a robot, but you can barely see it during this episode. It doesn't help that she wears gloves now. I just think it's a nice detail and a cool callback to volume 2. I think the synthetic skin might've been burnt off when Penny caught one of Cinder's fire swords and it blew up in her face. Oscar confronts Ironwood inside the vault. Ironwood tells him that it was smart of him not to bring the lamp down here, because he wouldn't trust himself right now either. Oscar isn't going to fight him. Holding Ozpin's cane just helps calm him down when he's afraid, and he puts it away. He knows that Ironwood is afraid too, because they all are. It's what they do when they're scared that reveals who they truly are. However, Ironwood yells that that's easy for him to say. He can label him however he wants, but he was right. The minute he softened and let his guard down, that's when Salem had her opening. If he abandons Mantle, then he abandons their best chance of reuniting the world. He abandons Remnant. He abandons millions of people to save only a few. Ironwood says those are all excellent philosophical points, but that doesn't matter if Salem wins. Oscar pleads with Ironwood to listen, but he refuses. He's done letting others' inability to see the big picture get in the way of doing what's right. Oscar tells him that he's as dangerous as Salem if that's the case. He responds by shooting Oscar, which depletes his Aura and sends him over the edge of the platform. Cinder gets into Fria's room, but before she can attack Penny, Winter comes in and cuts her Grimm arm off, and it painfully grows back. She attacks Winter, and we see some blood land on the floor. As they're fighting, Fria and Penny hold hands, and it looks like Fria starts giving Penny her Aura. Before Cinder can kill Winter, she looks at the snowflakes and sees that Penny has become the new Winter Maiden. Weiss and Ruby arrive, which terrifies Cinder. Ruby activates her silver eyes. While Oscar is falling, Ozpin comes back, and he reaches for the cane. He activates the gears in it, which makes it glow, and he basically breaks through the bottom of Atlas. As the epilogue begins, we finally hear Shannon McCormick's voice again as Ozpin gives a monologue about fear. Cinder left right as Ruby used her eyes. Winter is hurt, but she looks beautiful with her hair down, and wonders what her sister did that made the general decide to arrest her. She also tells Penny that Fria is a part of her now. Robyn wakes up, right in time for her and Qrow to be arrested. She comforts him though, and he has Clover's pin. Jaune, Nora, and Ren get on the airship, and Yang asks them where Oscar and the relic are. They don't answer, and Ren is practically in a fetal position. Ominous clouds start to roll in as a new day dawns. That's another thing. Chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 technically all took place on the same night, in less than 24 hours. That's almost half the volume. Holy shit, no wonder the characters are so physically and emotionally exhausted. Winter tells the girls to surrender and comply with the general's orders, and Weiss sadly tells her that they can't do that. She tells them to run then. Weiss doesn't want to leave her, but she says she's just giving them a head start as she radios in for medical assistance and requests reinforcements. Weiss says they all have to carve out their own way. The others all leave on the airship, including Penny. Cinder becomes smug again when Neo hands her the relic, but after she takes it without even so much as thanking her, Neo looks annoyed and angry. Winter tells Ironwood that "it" is gone, meaning the maiden powers, and he yells, as now he has no way to open the vault and get the staff, so now his plan won't work. It's revealed that Watts is still alive and in a cell, but whatever he sees from its vantage point causes him to smile. Oscar is able to create a barrier that lets him land safely in Mantle. It's either his semblance or Ozpin's magic. Then again, he can't use a Semblance if he has no Aura left, and it looks a lot like Ozpin's barrier from his fight with Cinder in the volume 3 finale, so it's probably magic. Ozpin tells Oscar that *he* saved *both* of them, not the other way around. Oscar asks him how they're going to save Atlas next. Meanwhile, the others in the airship hear the military panicking about the ominous clouds with red lightning, which reveal that Salem has arrived. She has an amazing new outfit. That's the end of the episode and the volume and the start of another hiatus. "The single quality that is common across every living creature on this planet, is fear. It's funny then, that as common as fear is, we so easily underestimate its power. Fear of growing close to someone. The subsequent fear of loss. Fear of failure. And as more people depend on you, those fears can take on greater power. But the fear itself isn't worthy of concern. It is who we *become* while in its clutches. Will you be proud of that person? Will you forgive them? Will you understand why they felt the need to do the things they did? Will you even recognize them? Or will the person staring back at you be the very thing you should've feared from the start? I suppose we all find out, sooner or later."

## Review

Personally, I loved this episode, and this volume as a whole, but I'm not sure where I'd rank it. Probably the second best volume after volume 3, which it surpasses in certain areas, like voice acting, lighting, and cinematography, among other things. The music is phenomenal, as always, both the songs and the score. Nothing will be as good as Monty's fight animation though. There's no after credit scene because they wanted to avoid crunch time this year. There are apparently nine new songs though. The one that plays during the credits is called Fear. Also, this episode aired on the fifth anniversary of Monty's passing, so just like volume 3, they ended it by showing his signature again and saying that they still love him. And so do I.