RWBY: Sacrifice

Now onto the third and (currently) last completed volume of RWBY's recaps. Here, everything starts to change.

We kick off with the first episode 'Round One', with RWBY visiting her mother's grave and telling her all the fun times she has had at Beacon with her friends. At the end of the scene, we see some birds flying off into the sun, making the signature symbol that Monty Oum has been known for.

(Still miss you, Monty)

Next scene and the Vytal Tournament in full swing as Team RWBY takes on the visiting team ABRN (pronounced 'auburn'). Professors Oobleck and Port provide both commentary and exposition on how exactly the Tournament functions:

• It has three phases: round one is will full teams, second round has two members from each team, and third round is just single fighters.
• Each team must either knock out the other team (by reducing their aura) or by ring out
• Shown later on, but not mentioned, is that arenas will be randomly generated around certain themes, like lava lakes, glaciers, forests, city ruins or even water.

Team RWBY manages to win their first round and have some lunch to celebrate. Emerald manages to catch up to them (still under the pretenses of being their friend) while making note that Weiss and Yang will be heading into the next round. Its also noted that Emerald, Mercury, Cinder, and a disguised Neo are also competing and have completed their first round too. 

After team RWBY gets their food, Weiss tries paying for team, but finds her credit card revoked. Thankfully, team JNPR comes in with the save with some cash and get wished 'good luck' before their next match. The episode ends as team JNPR takes to fighting team BRNZ (pronounced 'bronze).

Next episode to pop up is 'New Challengers'. Here, Team JNPR manages to win their round while Team SSSN (pronounced 'sun') with members Sun, Neptune, and their other teammates Sage and Scarlet, take to fighting Team NDGO (pronounced 'indigo'). Despite half the field being covered in water, which turns out to be Neptune's greatest fear, team SSSN manages to advance to the next round relatively unfettered,

Throughout this episode, we also see a man getting drunk in a bar watching the fights. He comments on how it all 'isn't really that great' while noticing a large plane touching down near the festival area. He leaves, making note that someone is arriving. Back at the tournament, Weiss and Ruby also notice the plane touching down, making Weiss realize that 'she' is here now.

This leads us into 'Its Brawl in the Family', with the arrival of not only Weiss' sister Winter Schnee, but also the full appearance of Ruby's uncle, the man drunk in the previous episode, Qrow Branwen. The two end up getting into an argument, which leads into a fight across the area. Mercury ends up catching a bit of it before leaving to tell Cinder. Before the fight can come to a finish, Qrow bows out and leaves Winter to blame, forcing her to leave under Ironwood's orders.

Qrow and Ironwood soon meet with Ozpin and Glynda in secret, the quartet discussing a matter of things: the infiltrator (meaning Cinder) is the one responsible for the condition of one 'Autumn', that the Atlas military on point could be more trouble than protection, and that Qrow has been away a lot on reconnaissance and found things to get pretty scary pretty quickly. Back with the villains, not only does Mercury reveal that Qrow has arrived, but also that Cinder has been manipulating the standings for certain fights to occur. This leads to her creating a matchup between Mercury and Emerald against members of team CFVY from volume 2.

(I could post something more serious, but with the way this volume is going, I'll need all the laughs I can get.)

The followup is 'Lessons Learned', showing Mercury and Emerald defeating the two members of team CFVY rather handily. Meanwhile, Weiss and Winter have a family talk about their lives away from their father's influence as well as their rare family Semblence of 'glyphs'. Winter reveals the higher level skill of actually summoning defeated enemies like the Grimm as ice creatures, something she tries to teach Weiss to do as well. It sort of takes, but not to any major extent.

With the Rose family, Qrow discusses a bit about his journey with Yang and Ruby, making reference to the team he was previously a part of with Ruby's mother and Yang's mother and father; team STRQ (pronounced 'stark'). Yang takes particular note of her mother, who bears a slight resemblance to the woman that saved her in the previous volume (that little ending scene from volume 2? never really addressed yet). Weiss says goodbye to her sister as she leaves with the episode wrapping up.

We continue in 'Never Miss a Beat', with RWBY members Weiss and Yang taking on members of the Atlas team FNKI (pronounced 'funky'), Flynt Coal and Neon Katt. After some heavy fighting, Weiss and Yang manage to win their fight and advance to the next round. Ruby herself manages to reunite with Penny for a bit, the latter also having entered into the tournament and made it to the third round as well. It is a bit of a breather episode before the big kick off coming up next.

Halfway through the volume and we reach 'Fall', which drops a bunch of different bombshells. Pyrrha gets asked to meet with Ozpin and the secret co. to go over the 'Maidens', four girls who possess incredible magic power. One, Amber, had been critically injured and half of her power stolen. The only way to save the other half would be to transfer that half into a worthy vessel. For them, they picked Pyrrha. She is given the choice of whether or not to go through with it, but she'll need to decide sooner than later.

The third round of the tournament starts, with Yang facing off against Mercury. Its a tough battle, but Yang manages to come out on top. However, Mercury tries to go for a sneak attack, which Yang is able to counter attack. Unfortunately, with his Aura down, Mercury gets shot in the knee. While Yang saw Mercury attacking her, the audience saw Yang dealing a cruel blow after the match. Everyone is in shock as forces move in to potentially stop Yang, who herself is confused as to what just happened.

(Given his behavior, he kind of deserves it)

The next episode is mostly a flashback titled 'The Beginning of the End'. Ominous.

It brings up Cinder's recruitment of a young Emerald and Mercury (the latter whom probably just killed his father shortly before recruitment). They try getting the White Fang onboard as well, but it is clear that Adam isn't biting at this point. Instead, they trio focus their attention on one of the Maidens, Amber. Here, we learn a multitude of things:

• Emerald can cast illusions on people, usually one at a time
• Mercury actually has prosthetic metal legs instead, making the inevitable shot to the knees another trick
• Amber's Maiden powers are pretty incredible, though she ends up losing the fight
• Cinder uses a small, parasite-like Grimm to try and acquire those powers, succeeding in only getting half.
• Qrow actually arrives on the scene to prevent the full power capture, but the villain trio escape

With the maiden's powers all hers, Cinder forces the White Fang into the alliance with her. Back in the present, the villains manage to trick the medics into believing the injury while they retreat and hide out until the next match.

We then head into the episode 'Destiny'. Ironwood reveals to team RWBY that they've been disqualified for their actions. Some write off Yang's actions as being under heavy stress in battle, but it is clear that there is more afoot when Ruby learned of it happening with team CFVY as well. 

Meanwhile, Jaune and Pyrrha have a nice moment together, though each misinterpreting the others words. Pyrrha tries talking about destiny and whether or not to follow through on it (since she can't talk about the maidens outside of Ozpin and co.) Miscommunication leads to Pyrrha getting upset and knocking Jaune away, apologizing before leaving. 

The next fight in the tournament starts, with Pyrrha fighting against Penny. Not only does Ruby know of the possible implications here (a metallic robot fighting someone with magnetisim), but also sees Emerald in the crowd, despite the latter supposed to be tending to her friend. It gets worse when she sees Mercury walking around all fine, notices Ruby, and she forgets that she doesn't have her weapon to properly fight.

It leads us to the next episode, 'PvP'. Pyrrha and Penny start fighting as Mercury keeps Ruby from alerting people. Once Penny starts busting out the swords on strings, Emerald uses her Semblance to make Pyrrha see hundreds of blades instead of a few. Pyrrha overreacts and uses her magnetism to disrupt the blades, the strings of which actually end up cutting straight through Penny and killing her, much to the shock of everyone in attendance.

(Fun fact: this fan picture was put online BEFORE the actual episode aired)

Ruby breaks down in shock and surprise as Mercury just exits stage left. Cinder gets on all intercoms, delivers a speech about the secret counsel of Ozpin and co. were doing stuff that may seem amoral (paraphrasing here), which gets the crowd riled up enough to bring the Grimm in as well as the White Fang lead by Adam (which brings more Grimm in). Also, Neo frees Roman on one of the Atlas ships.

The real fighting begins in 'Battle of Beacon'. Pyrrha is still in too much shock to react to a giant Grimm coming down in front of her. Ruby comes to the save as many of the hunters and huntresses in training come in to help. Ironwood arrives (and kicks butt against the Grimm) and tells them to either stay and fight or run before heading on one of his ships to help. However, Roman activates a virus which turns many of the Atlas machines away from the Grimm and White Fang and against everyone else. Ironwood himself gets caught on his own airship, which ends up exploding on its own.  Ruby realizes something is up and goes to try and stop the machines at the source. As the heroes try to fight and split up, Blake runs into Adam, who is all too upset upon seeing Blake. Meanwhile, a massive dragon Grimm bursts out of one of the mountains and attacks, as well as deposits Grimm from its hide onto the surface. Pyrrha breaks off to find Ozpin while Jaune follows her in pursuit.

The penultimate episode of Volume 3 is 'Heroes and Monsters'. The remaining heroes do their best against the Atlas machines and Grimm, but are clearly faltering. Ruby manages to get on the ship with Neo and Roman, taking out the former by opening her umbrella (imagine doing that off of the top of an airship) and the latter gets eaten by a Grimm mid-rant. Blake fights Adam, though the latter is certainly stronger and crazier than her. Yang arrives to help and attacks, but Adam manages to react fast enough to swing his blade and cut off one of Yang's arms.

(I honestly hope she ends up with something like this after that experience)

Blake manages to get herself and Yang away from Adam thanks to another shadow clone. Meanwhile, Ozpin prepares Pyrrha to receive the maiden power with Jaune standing guard to help. Unfortunately, Cinder interrupts with an arrow, killing Amber and taking the full maiden power for herself. Ozpin orders Pyrrha and Jaune to leave as he tries to hold off Cinder himself.

The final episode for the volume is 'End of the Beginning'. Ozpin tries to fight Cinder in the dark, but Cinder somehow manages to come out on top. As the heroes start to retreat, Ruby goes to after Jaune and Pyrrha (the latter kissing the former and sending him away to safety to fight Cinder alone). In this battle, Pyrrha tries her hardest to fight Cinder, but ends up dying in the end. After witnessing another friend fall, something in Ruby is awaken, drowning her, Cinder and everything else in a bright flashing light.

Time passes and Ruby awakens from a coma, which leads to an info dump by her father Taiyang and uncle Qrow:

• Beacon Academy is overrun with Grimm, the dragon itself now frozen in stone, but still drawing them in
• Communications are down thanks to the villains, making inter-kingdom communication virtual nonexistent
• Atlas' reputation is most likely in the toilet, thanks to video showing the rogue Atlas robots attacking
• Weiss is taken back by her father for protection
• Blake is back on the run...again
• Yang is stuck in bed and mostly mopey, due to losing her arm and Blake
• Ruby's silver eyes make reference to legends of 'silver-eyed warriors' that make them feared amongst the Grimm

When winter comes, Ruby leaves with the remaining members of team JNPR (which sort of manes them now team RNJR) leave for Haven to try and stop what may be coming next. Qrow follows them in secret and we get revealed of the true mastermind behind it all: a villainess named Salem, residing in the unknown lands of Grimm.

(Behold, new nightmare fuel)

Certainly a lot to unpack there. This coming Friday, I'll give my thoughts for these three volume, as well as series in general at this point.

Until next time...