RWBY V8 C5

## Plot

Pietro and Maria are in Amity Colosseum, which is still at the abandoned mine. Penny reluctantly arms one of many bombs inside the mine. It's not a good idea, but it's the best one they have. They have enough systems up and running to broadcast their message and keep Amity in atmospheric orbit, but their thrusters aren't capable of reaching their target altitude. Luckily, the dust in the mine is capable of giving them the thrust they need… if they blow it sky high. Once they're in broadcast range, they'll activate the gravity dust stabilizers, establish global communications, and send the message they recorded to the rest of the world. After that, they just have to pilot Amity away from everything else. Penny still wants to stay behind in case help doesn't arrive, but Pietro tells her that they're not having this conversation again. She belongs on Amity. She sadly tells her father yes sir, and flies up there. Maria tells Pietro that Penny has had enough people telling her what to do. This actually reminds me of Kara Zor-El's arc in *Superman/Batman: Apocalypse*. Everyone else thinks they know what's best for her and basically makes choices for her about her life: Is she a threat? Family? A normal girl? A warrior? A hero? An enemy? Anyway, they're able to fool Amity with the clone imprint from Ironwood's terminal. The bombs start counting down from thirty seconds. Penny places Maria in a mech, when Cinder, Neo, and Emerald suddenly arrive. Before they can fight, the bombs blow up the mine, and the combatants are forced to the ground when Amity launches up into the atmosphere, since they don't have gravity dust or a mech. Ironwood and the Ace Ops get a sensory alert about it, and the general says that it's time. As Cinder creates dozens of swords, she tells Penny that she's just a tool to be used. The pot said to the kettle. Penny tells her that she doesn't know what she's talking about. The big thrusters stop. Maria blocks the swords with the mech, but then she's hit by Neo piloting the airship. Maria tries to slam the ship into the ground, but Neo hits reverse. Maria doesn't see the ship, but she does see Emerald using her Semblance. The airship hits the mech. The cockpit opens, and Maria asks Neo what she wants. She turns into Ruby and throws Maria out of the mech. However, she lands on her feet and holds out her cane. They fight each other. Emerald runs to a different part of the coliseum. Pietro sees that they've reached the broadcast range, but then one of their stabilizers fails thanks to Cinder's fiery entrance. They'll lose the broadcast signal in three minutes. Cinder and Penny have an epic midair battle near Amity. Penny leaves to lead Cinder away so she doesn't damage the coliseum, and it briefly works, but when Cinder realizes what she's doing, she flies back, and Penny follows her. Neo is having trouble against Maria, who is even shorter than she is, and has the perfect Semblance to counter her moves. Maria folds out the blade in her cane/sickle. Cinder starts melting the steel beams near Pietro. Penny asks her why she's serving someone like Salem. Cinder says she doesn't serve anyone, and neither would Penny if she wasn't built that way. She says she chooses to fight for people who care about her. She uses her swords and her ice powers to try and stabilize the platform. However, Cinder takes the opportunity to attack her with her Grimm arm. Penny holds it back with one hand, and continues to freeze one of the steel beams with the other. Cinder gets her to let go by burning her hand, and she starts draining her Aura from her. Penny makes ice swords that throw her into a wall, which Emerald sees. Penny lands on the ground. Neo also hits a distracted Maria, sending her to the ground. Before she can kill her though, Penny hits her with a laser, sending her into the airship, which breaks her Aura. Penny flies back up to Cinder, who creates a giant spear. Emerald uses her Semblance to create copies of her. Penny creates a storm with green lightning to charge her laser back up. Her true nature means that she can tell the difference between the copies, because the real Cinder gives off a heat signature. She blasts her with an extra powerful laser, which knocks her out. Emerald runs up to her, and shoots at Penny in anger. She dodges the bullet, but it hits something near Pietro. Emerald knows she can't beat Penny, but before Robo-Girl can take her down, she can fill Amity full of holes. Penny lets them leave. I think it shocked her to see that Emerald, a… not great person, genuinely cared about someone, especially someone like Cinder. They leave in their airship, and Penny and Maria get back to Pietro. They've missed their window. Penny says she can fix this. Their message is only a few minutes long. She can push Amity back into position and keep it there for awhile. Pietro refuses, but she says it's their only option. Maria reminds Pietro to think about the big picture, but he yells that he doesn't care about that. He cares about his daughter. He already lost her once. He doesn't want to go through that again. He wants the chance to watch her live her life. She tells him that she's trying to. He lets her do it. Before she does, she looks at Atlas and the night sky. So pretty… Also, yeah, they're ridiculously high up. She's able to do it with her Maiden powers. Ruby recorded a message for everyone in Remnant at the abandoned restaurant/bar from the first episode. She tells everyone that Atlas is under attack. She tells them about Salem, the maidens, the relics, and Ironwood's recent behavior. We see Bill from episode 3, the drinking buddies from volume 7, people in the Mistral train station, Saphron, Terra, Adrian, Whitley, and the Faunus and that one human family in the slums. And then we get to the part where people started freaking out. We see *Sun and Neptune in Vacuo, Ilia*, who gets a call from Ghira, the shop keep, and even Professor *Glynda Goodwitch* *in Vale*. Ah! Her new model looks fantastic! I love it! Ruby says that the Atlas drones, the White Fang, and the Grimm themselves have all been controlled and manipulated by Salem, who is immortal, in order to tear down the Huntsmen Academies. She knows it all sounds crazy, but Glynda and Headmaster Theodore of Shade can verify it. They might even be able to organize a way to fight back. Harriet turns off the TV when Ruby says that Ironwood can no longer be trusted. He and the Ace Ops are watching the broadcast. Marrow seems glad that they succeeded. Ironwood tells Watts that Dr. Polendina's proxy trick worked, but he says that's good news for them. Penny's blades operate on the same principle as Amity Tower and the launch terminal. In order for her to control them all, they need to be able communicate with one another. Tyrian and Salem are also watching the broadcast, but they're not bothered by it at all. Nora is sleeping in Weiss's bedroom. Someone wrapped her in bandages. Weiss is holding her hand while she, Blake, and Ruby watch the broadcast. Salem can't be killed, but that doesn't mean she can't be beaten. If she really was unstoppable, then she wouldn't have acted with such caution until now. She knows humanity is a threat. So even if Atlas falls, they can't give up. In the end, they'll win if they work together. Watts uses a chip to hack Penny. Her eyes flicker between red and green. Pietro asks her what's wrong, but she doesn't know. It's revealed that even Taiyang and Zwei are watching the broadcast in Patch. Burnie! We miss you! Seriously though, Tai hasn't seen Ruby since the end of volume 3. That was at least a year ago, right? The timeline is confusing. Pietro tells Penny to get back inside. She's done enough. They can ride out on Amity together. She says she has to go and mentions the vault. She falls, and starts *burning up in a fireball* as she re-enters the atmosphere. The last thing she tells her dad is that she loves him. Taylor McNee's voice performance during this episode was so good! Also, we don't see Pietro and Maria *for the rest of the volume*. Harriet says that global comms just went back down. Ironwood notes that Penny hasn't responded yet, and asks Watts what he did. He says he did exactly what he asked him to do. Penny's systems may simply be rebooting. When Watts says that Pietro might not be the genius Ironwood thinks he is, the general throws his Scroll at him in anger. Winter enters the room, sporting her new hairstyle and arm braces. Her visible injuries have healed. Ironwood orders her and the rest of the Ace Ops to find Penny. Until she responds or is standing in front of the vault, they can't assume her status. He orders Harriet to put Watts back in his cell. While no one is watching him though, he manages to swipe Ironwood's broken Scroll. Yang, Jaune, and Ren also saw the broadcast. Yang wonders why they lost the signal. They hear a booming sound outside and investigate. The crack from the previous episode was actually a river… full of Grimm… heading straight for Mantle.