Awesome / Fairies of the Shattered Moon

UNMARKED SPOILERS AHEAD. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Intro/Beacon Arc

• Chapter 9:
  • Thanks to her magic and training from Earthland, Ruby does much better in her fight with Roman and Neo atop the Atlesian Battleship, using her Requip to throw the villainous duo off their rhythm, and even managing to land a hit on Neo with her shield Tulip's Aegis. And in perhaps her best moment of the fight, she saves Roman from his canon death by blasting the Griffon away with her Silver Spirit Wail just as it swallows him. And right after...
    Roman: "You... saved me?"
    Ruby: "It's what I do."
    Roman: "You sap."

    (Neo tries to stab Ruby in the back. Ruby knocks her back to Torchwick.)
    Roman: "Oh, what did you expect, Red?"
    Ruby: "From you? Nothing. From me? Nothing less."
  • She then proceeds to bust out Full Magnolia (described as Seras Victoria's cannons) and blow the battleship away with one salvo.
• Chapter 10:
  • As poorly as it ended up turning out, Blake's resolve to not allow Adam to hurt Yang resulting in her first Grimm Form was pretty awesome, if terrifying. Especially when she beat the ever-loving tar out of her former abuser, no-selling everything he threw at her and leaving him with three long scars over his face. Adam's later appearances show just how haunted he is by the encounter.
• Chapter 11:
  • Thanks to the slight speed boost provided by her Reaper's Rose Armor, Ruby makes it to the top of Beacon Tower just in time to stop Cinder from killing Pyrrha. She then proceeds to fight tooth and nail to protect her, despite being outgunned and outnumbered against Cinder and the Wyvern.
  • Pyrrha, despite being out of aura and unable to stand after Cinder cut her Achilles tendon, does everything in her power not to be a burden during Ruby's fight. She even uses her only recently discovered magic, later confirmed to be Heavenly Body Magic, to escape one of Cinder's attacks when Ruby can't reach her and even saves her friend when Cinder tries to blindside her when she's charging Fairy Glitter. This last effort knocks her out and would have delivered her to her canon fate if Wendy hadn't arrived to heal her.
  • A villainous one for Cinder. Even with magic of her own, Ruby can barely even survive against her. When the young huntress tries to use Fairy Glitter against her, Cinder attacks her while she's charging the spell, wasting her last chance. That this action ends up sending the shot wild and releasing Wendy and Carla from their Fairy Sphere doesn't take away that she had both Ruby and Pyrrha dead to rights.
• Chapter 12:
  • Once Cinder is preoccupied, Ruby and Weiss easily defeat the Wyvern, the latter binding it in ice chains and the former blowing it away with her Silver Spirit Wail.
  • Wendy vs. Cinder. The new Fall Maiden faces off with the newly arrived Maiden of the Sky in an epic aerial battle above Beacon Tower. Though Cinder holds her own well even against her foe's Dragon Force, once Wendy gets her enchantments up, the fight swings against Salem's minion. Wendy finishes the battle by blasting Cinder into a crater with Shattering Light: Sky Drill and leaving her a broken and bloodied mess that Emerald has to carry away. After the Fall Maiden had spent the last few chapters unleashing the Fall of Beacon and nearly killing Ruby and Pyrrha, it is immensely satisfying.
    "I hear the rush of the wind. I feel the pulse of the atmosphere. I know the touch of the air, from the softest breeze to the fiercest hurricane. I know them because they are mine! This space is mine to protect! I am the Maiden of the Sky, and you should not have hurt my friend!."
    —- Wendy Marvell

Volume 4 Arcs: Mistral, Atlas, Menagerie

• Chapter 16: On one hand, The Reveal that Ozma was a mythical hero even in Fairy Tail's time, and on the other, Oscar apparently having such a powerful origin that when Ozpin briefly takes over to display his magic, he effortlessly performs Time Magic to reverse the pouring of water back into the pump. And Oscar can feel he only used a bare fraction of his true power.
• Chapter 19: We get a flashback to Earthland where Yang defeats Bacchus Groh — a wizard of Erza's caliber — one on one, by cleverly taking advantage of his fighting style to power up her semblance.
• Chapter 24:
  • Tyrian vs Blake. We get to see, for the first time, one of Salem's Gates in an extended battle against Blake in the form of an out-of-control Deathstalker due to her Takeover: Grimm Soul and it does not disappoint. Tyrian expertly wields the powers of Scorpio and Jackal against Blake's raw power and madness making for a clash that turns the whole desert into their weapons.
  • Meanwhile in Atlas, Weiss manhandles Adam with her magic and he fails to land a single blow on her. It immensely satisfying to see Adam so helpless knowing just how abusive and vicious he is.
• Chapter 25: Weiss, fueled by rage from seeing Adam's brand, confronting her father and directly demanding control of the S.D.C. or she will release Atlas Intelligence's dirt on him that will put him away for life. Jacques is cowed and scared and when he tries to slap his daughter she nonchalantly catches his arm and throws him into a bookcase. It is rather cathartic seeing Weiss stand up to her father so grandly. Especially since it was a bluff. Weiss had no such information and merely used the entire thing as a ploy to learn more about Operation Godmother's Haven and COMMAND ESR. And Jacques fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
• Chapter 26: Ozma vs Mard Geer Tartaros. Both combatants are in their prime, centuries before Fairy Tail canon and both fight with such ferocity and power in a battle that can only be described as legendary. Mard Geer is far more powerful than he was by the time of Tartaros and so much more emotional and reckless, making him a force of raw destruction. Ozma, both cocky and intelligent, matches his opponent blow for blow, always staying one step ahead of him, revealing at the end that the entire battle was a diversion while one of his other spells freed Mard Geer's prisoner.
• Chapter 26-27:
  • Happy — yes, that Happy — displays his new abilities and combat prowess and proves himself more than a match for the likes of Wendy, Ruby, and Qrow all through a combination of tactics and clever use of his environment.
  • Jaune gets some standout moments in the fight. When Wendy is overwhelmed by Happy's Jupiter Cannon, he adds his Holy Barriers into the beam struggle knowing that they wouldn't be enough to stop the blast, but setting them at just the right angle to divert the attack enough that it doesn't kill the group. He then protects Wendy when he can't even stand and unlocks his semblance to heal her at just the right time to swing the battle in the heroes' favour. Even Happy and End are impressed by his tenacity and contributions to the battle, deeming him a worthy candidate for one of Salem's Gates.
  • We also get a flashback to Salem trying to save Happy and Natsu from Bane Particle poisoning by putting them through an impossibly agonizing demonization process where the subject could be killed by the sheer pain alone (Demons are immune to Bane Particles and the two of them were dying anyway). Happy survived because he was just that determined for Natsu's sake.
• Chapter 31
  • Weiss and Gray each individually figuring out what was really going on in Atlas through deductive reasoning. Weiss figures out Anna is still Intelligence by provoking her into feigning ignorance of magic, which she knows she knows about since Gray overheard the sisters discussing it in Chapter 22. Then she realizes that Esper Rosenflos is in league with Watts by realizing that the latter passed up a perfectly good opportunity to catch her in the Schnee Manor bombing that would have simplified his plans. Gray gets one better, going along with Esper's plans until he's close enough to sense the Winter Maiden's power and confirm the one wearing COMMAND ESR's mask is the real Esper and not another blade clone. He then proceeds to nonchalantly annihilate the blade clone that had been leading him and Winter around with a trio of Ice-Make Lances.
  • Penny making her grand entrance saving Weiss from Watts. She crashes through the windshield of the in-flight bullhead, frees Weiss from her seat, and then blasts a hole through the back of the ship, making the man who murdered her father look like a fool the entire time.
    Penny: (In response to Watts asking if she thinks she can beat him despite being weaker than him): Such a scenario is unlikely. However, unlike you, I can fly.

    Blows the bullhead wipe open.
• Chapter 32:
  • The entire chapter is essentially an extended one for Esper/Summer. She reveals just how thoroughly she'd outmaneuvered Weiss, Gray, and Winter from the very beginning of the arc, with everyone they thought they could trust having been working for her, including all three Tremaines. Knowing Gray's Devil Slayer abilities allowed him to stand up to a partially emerged End in the past and might have chance at defeating her, she had Anna poison him with Bane Particles while he was in the hospital. She then proceeds to trounce him in combat, doing the same to Weiss when she arrives to help. When the two fire off a Unison Raid that could have hurt her, she uses Virgo's powers to dodge the blast instead of trying to block. She then transforms into her Eclipse Etherious form just to show off to the Fairy Tail wizards just how outgunned they are. By the end Winter is captured, the other heroes are forced to flee to Patch as fugitives from Atlas, and Summer has taken all of Atlas for Salem with the people's blessing. She sways Clover, Marrow, and even the highly skeptical Robyn to her side.
• Chapters 34-35:
  • Blake, Lucy, Loke, Sun, Ilia, Ghira, and the Menagerie Guard's battle against Tyrian is chock full of them. Perhaps most notable are Lucy unleashing Urano Metria to nearly one-shot the Gate and Blake finally gaining conscious control of her Full-Body Take-Over Grimm Form to finish the Ecplise Etherious off with the Sea Feilong's lightning beam down the throat.
• Chapter 36: Oscar observes his memories to see how Ozma has the guts to call out Ankhseram for his treatment of Sitara, who is faced with either exile or extermination for the misfortune of being contaminated by Mard. He may be The Archmage, but this is a god, one that the Celestial Spirit King shows deference to, he's yelling at, and he still calls him cruel to his face. And even though he does not back down from his decree, Ankhseram does seem to consider the hero's accusations.

Haven Arc

• Chapter 38:
  • Ruby. Versus. Pyrrha. We finally get to see the results of Pyrrha's training and talent in Heavenly Body Magic, combining it with her Semblance and new weapons in a match with Ruby, who displays clever use of her Requip arsenal and tactics against her prodigious opponent, showing off what her completed Reaper's Rose Armor can do. Throughout the fight, despite Ruby managing to put her on the defensive many times, Pyrrha still manages to keep the advantage even though she only has half as much experience as Ruby at using magic.
  • Oscar also gets a moment where he uses the Long Memory to cast a barrier that completely nullifies the powerful Grand Chariot spell cast by Pyrrha. Jaune pulls off something similar by using his Holy Barriers to deflect Ruby's Silver Spirit Wail.
• Chapter 40
  • When the chapter's flashback opens with Team RWBY having laid out dozens of Tartaros Mooks, but still at the end of their ropes. Their greatest foe is soon revealed to be Fairy Tail's future enemy Kyouka, who promptly reminds everyone why it would eventually take Erza and Minerva to kill her. Despite being outnumbered and Yang being a Devil Slayer, it takes her all of five seconds to incapacitate Weiss, Blake, and Yang once she uses her curse. And despite Ruby's aura protecting her from the pain enhancement, she soon has the silver-eyed huntress pinned and helpless as well. One does not cross Mard Geer's right hand...
  • ... Unless that one is Sitara/Salem. The future Queen of the Grimm makes her grand entrance to her oft-hinted past meeting with Team RWBY by blowing Kyouka to pieces in three blows. By the end of it, Kyouka is missing half her lungs.
  • Yang also gets one, taking Kyouka by surprise early in their confrontation and being the only member of Team RWBY to wound the Etherious.
  • In present day, Qrow standing up to an enraged Erza/Scarlet Nikos, despite knowing all about what she can do.
• Chapter 43:
  • We finally get a glimpse of the power of End, with him showing a mastery of Fire far surpassing that of Natsu, his alternate personality. His Fire Curse is not only far more intense in heat, but End displays enviably precise control over it. In an instant he incinerates the entire Branwen tribe and then proceeds to school Yang in combat, all the while critiquing her fight style as a teacher would a student. The chapter makes it clear that Salem's greatest soldier is a force to be feared, with Raven's first instinct being to flee immediately.
  • Yang's showing in the fight shouldn't be dismissed either as despite being astronomically outclassed by the Strongest Etherious she manages to cause him some pain with her flames. Even End notes he can't afford to be careless with her abilities.
• Chapter 44:
  • The second he finds out his sister pretty much left Yang to End to save her own skin, Qrow's ready to deck Raven, even with full knowledge of her being the Spring Maiden. It's only because Wendy talks him down does he back down.
  • Scarlet picks up where Qrow left off and gives Raven a powerful "The Reason You Suck" Speech, emphazising that it's a mother's duty to protect her child, even at the cost of her life. This also gives her the resolve to try having her memories as Erza unlocked again.
  • Wendy briefly bluffs the Huntress-turned-bandit by claiming she placed a tracking spell on her and will tell Salem how to use it if Raven doesn't cooperate. Raven calls said bluff, but she doesn't deny she isn't impressed in her thoughts.
  • And Ozpin finishes the job not with harsh words, but by reminding Raven of her better qualities. Her former teacher encourages her to at least try to make up for her cowardice by standing alongside them.
• Chapter 45:
  • Erza's back. This time, for real.
  • Yang is captured in Lionheart's office and her magic restrained by a sealstone cuff attached to her wrist. What does she do to escape her predicament? Cuts off her own hand — her remaining hand! — replaces it with a demonic claw made of Purple Flare and proceeds to demolish everything around her (knocking out Lionheart in the process), before leaping into battle against Salem's forces.
  • Cinder fires fifteen arrows in rapid succession with her Sagittarius powers, each one supposedly strong enough to take down an Atlesian Paladin. Oscar makes sure, both with Arc of Time and a barrier courtesy of the Long Memory, they don't even come close to reaching their targets.
• Chapter 46: The Battle for Haven in all its glory.
  • Cinder first outmanoeuvres Oscar due to him not being as experienced as Ozpin was, but then she's intercepted heading for the Vault by Pyrrha.
  • Ruby and Happy engage in a Sniper Duel.
  • Qrow takes on the White Fang soldiers single-handedly while using his transformation power in front of them as a scare tactic.
  • Yang and Mercury go all out in their rematch, with Mercury trapping her in a large prism of water courtesy of his new Gate powers. It's not looking good for Yang... until a certain Take-Over Faunus shows up.
• Chapter 47:
  • Jaune's no match for End in terms of raw power, but he makes creative use of his shield ankhs to weather the destructive flames. End repeatedly praises him for his ingenuity and determination.
  • It's revealed that during the Alvaraz War when Natsu gained access End's powers he was only using part of the Etherious's full strength. Keep in mind that Natsu managed to Curb-Stomp Di Maria and fight Gray who's devil slayer powers were going out control evenly and End is far stronger then Natsu was in those fights.
  • Jaune then gets backup in the form of Wendy and Erza, though they send the latter to help her daughter.
  • Mercury maintains the upper hand against Blake, Yang and Ren all at the same time until Yang figures out how to beat him: his prosthetic legs. Credit where credit's due, the assassin catches on quick even though his Aura's shattered, but then Ren finishes him off with his Crash Magic, blowing his head to dust.
• Chapter 48:
  • Ruby and Happy's Sniper Duel continues, with Ruby doing everything she can to overcome Happy's air superiority, even busting out Full Magnolia for the first time since the Fall of Beacon. Happy in turn survives being put on the back foot by the cannons by exploiting his size-changing abilities and his rifle's recoil to take advantage of the weapon's more cumbersome form. He might have even regained the upper hand in the fight if not for...
  • Lucy, Loke, and Carla's Big Damn Heroes moments. Lucy unleashes a volley from her Sagittarius Star Dress when Happy tries to avoid Ruby's flak fire while Carla challenges him to an airborne melee. Meanwhile, Loke snatches one of Emerald's Fire Devil Slayer coated sickles of out the air just as it was about to strike Nora.
  • Erza blowing past Emerald in the same scene, bypassing her Spinning Curse's protection by cutting the floor under her foot and using that to force her away.
  • Pyrrha and Raven vs. Cinder in the Vault of the Spring Maiden, for all sides. Though Pyrrha is clearly being made overly aggressive by her trauma from Beacon, she uses everything she's learned since to put up a great fight despite being clearly outmatched, even using Grand Chariot to obliterate half the vault's bridge and blow off half of Cinder's body in the process, forcing the Gate to use her Eclipse Etherious Form. Raven gets hers for not trying to run away despite clearly being terrified of Cinder and even saving Pyrrha when she was cornered by smacking the Fall Maiden with a giant ice sword.
  • Cinder gets hers once she enters her Eclipse Etherious Form. Pyrrha is a prodigy in both magic and combat and Raven is the Spring Maiden, one of the best huntresses in the world, and, in RWBY canon, the only person who has handed Cinder a solid defeat in battle. Here, as soon as she's going all out, The Gate of the Archer massacres them. In short order, she reveals she trained the Enhancement Curse into her own personal Kai-o-Ken, forcibly uses Raven to open the vault door and beats her half to death, breaks Pyrrha's aura and robs her of her senses, and retrieves the Relic of Knowledge. After her defeat by Wendy at Beacon Tower, her performance here makes clear that Cinder Fall is no less dangerous than ever. If anything, she's even more so.
  • Unfortunately for her, that just means she attracts someone even more dangerous: Erza. Just as the Fall Maiden is preparing to kill Pyrrha, Erza Scarlet Nikos arrives and socks Cinder in the face with a Giant Armor powered fist, sending the Gate sprawling into the dirt.
    Erza: "Get the hell away from my daughter, you bitch!"
• Chapter 49: Erza vs. Cinder, the climax of the Battle of Haven with the Relic of Knowledge in the balance and one of the story's best fights yet.
  • Pissed over seeing Pyrrha beaten to a pulp, Erza rushes Cinder and with a combination of bladework, Requip, and High Enchant drives the Gate of Archer onto the defensive, countering everything her opponent tries to use to regain control of the battle. It takes Cinder firing at a defenseless Pyrrha for the Fall Maiden to get some breathing room, and even then Erza uses her Adamantine Armor to stalemate the full-power maiden blast. The last sight is so awesome in-universe that Raven is inspired not to give into her fear and stay to help, distracting Cinder long enough for Erza to go back on the offensive.
  • Erza then takes advantage of the fact that since Cinder's swords are glass, they are less structurally sound than steel blades. She does so by first supercooling the blades with a slash of sword enchanting with Gray's ice and then immediately hitting them with another sword enchanted with Natsu's fire, shattering the weapons and letting her have open season on the momentarily defenseless Cinder. If the Eclipse Etherious's Spirit Slayer Magic hadn't kicked in on instinct, the fight would have ended right there.
  • Raven's plan, where once she starts fighting to win. She keeps Pyrrha from recklessly jumping back into the battle, and makes use of their limited abilities and Erza's current charge against Cinder to trap their enemy in the Vault of the Spring Maiden.

Jinn Arc

• Chapter 55: The chapter may be more about showing Salem/Sitara's backstory and fleshing out her character and goals, but it also shows just how incredibly powerful she really is. Probably her most impressive feat is being able to hold off Acnologia for half an hour by herself. Even with immortality, that is an extraordinary achievement. Acnologia casually one-shots members of the Spriggan 12, scared even Zeref, and it took all Ishgar's wizards to defeat him after he had been weakened and she not only held her own for a time, but he even acknowledged her as strong. Even Irene, one of the most powerful characters in the series and the second strongest of the Spriggan 12, admires her for that feat. Later she battles Ozma under the effects of Seram's Madness and while he does manage to temporarily kill her like in canon, it left him crawling on the ground and his staff broken. Keep in mind that Ozma is considered one of the greatest wizards of all time who defeated scores of Zeref's demons, and Sitara without being able to either strategize or access her Etherious Form pushed him to his absolute limit. Later she manages to defeat End after he awoke. End is accepted as the strongest of all Zeref's demons and designed specifically to kill immortals like her. It's true that End was in a berserk state but it still speaks volumes to her power and skill. It's made abundantly clear that Salem has more than earned her The Dreaded status.
  • We also see once again just how insanely dangerous End truly is. After having just regained control over his body for the first time in his life and being terrified and crazed he still manages to give Salem a hard fight. At the end of the battle, Salem is limping and burned. Salem also believes that as he is now End is fully capable of stopping her should she lose control.

Post Jinn Arc

• Chapter 57: Displays just what an amazing huntress Summer truly is. She manages, without any backup or support, to fight her way through the Grimmlands to reach Salem's castle. Keep in mind that the Grimmlands not only contain the world's biggest concentration of Grimm but also the oldest and strongest of their kind. Then, when she reaches the castle, she manages to somehow get past Hazel (a Gate) and End (the most powerful demon to have ever lived) to reach Salem and even manages to encase Salem in stone with her eyes (though Salem was distracted by Summer's similar appearance to Ruby). Then after gaining the powers of a Gate and without any training, she was able to flee the castle and make her way through the Grimmlands and get back to her family all the while evading End and Happy, who were chasing after her.

Grimmlands Arc

• Chapter 66: We see just how dangerous and powerful Crash Magic can be when it is wielded by someone with large magical reserves. After his interrupted Ascension, Jaune was able to destroy Salem's entire castle with just one attack. It's made clear that modifying Magnolia to prevent Gildarts from banging into anyone's homes was a wise move.
• Chapter 67: Is filled with Awesome Moments.
  • We get to see Hazel's Eclipse Etherious Form and it's made clear that neither Wendy nor Oscar can beat him. His already impressive Super-Strength skyrockets thanks to Taurus to the point that, after taking one blow, Oscar believes that if Wendy hadn't been enhancing him, he would have died. What's more, he has fully mastered Tempester's powers which he uses to quickly incapacitate Wendy as well as use his ability to ride on a tornado to make up for his relatively slow speed. His already immense durability has also been enhanced that even a direct, point-blank hit from Wendy in Dragonforce doesn't seem to have caused him to take any significant damage.
  • Oscar definitely gets to shine in this chapter though. He manages to outmaneuver Hazel with the Double Accel and later goads him into launching an attack that frees Wendy, who proceeds to blast him with a point-blank Sky Dragon Roar.
  • Mercury and Emerald show some impressive teamwork being able to create a wall of ice that blocks all the debris from falling on them.
  • Emerald finally stands up to Cinder, angrily pointing out how she was the one who saved Cinder after her fight with Wendy, how she begged Mercury to go looking for Cinder at Haven, and how she was prepared to return the Fall Maiden powers despite knowing how painful it would be. She flat out calls Cinder pathetic and angrily states that both she and Mercury had their own traumatic childhoods but how she isn't as broken as Cinder. This really hits home for Cinder and causes her to realize just how small she really is and how at heart she is still a frightened little girl.
  • Gray shows how he earned the title The Devil that Demons Fear when he defeats Mercury in one shot. This is the first time that any Gate has lost a one-on-one fight. It's true that Gray did have the advantage in fighting someone who uses water but it is still an amazing accomplishment.
• Chapter 68:
  • Summer vs Raven. Raven has had the Maiden's powers for nearly a decade and it shows. Raven does very well against Summer, constantly keeping her on the defensive for much of the battle, destroying all the clones she sends without getting caught in the resulting explosions, and managing to get a few good hits in. Unfortunately for her, Summer isn't considered the strongest of the Gates (bar End) for nothing, and the minute she whips out the Gate and Slayer magic, the battle quickly turns in her favor. Her Spirit Slayer Magic seems to be far more advanced than Ruby's and combining that with Virgo's Earth Magic, she quickly smashes Raven's aura. And unless you're a Demon or Devil Slayer, losing your aura means instant victory for Summer, as with one command from Macro she instantly subdues the Spring Maiden without even bringing out her Eclipse Etherious form.
• Chapter 70:
  • Weiss vs Summer rematch: Weiss shows how much she has improved, pushing Summer more than she has ever been pushed so far. Summer is actually forced to use her Eclipse Etherious Form which is extremely impressive for Weiss. Unfortunately for Weiss, the minute Summer brings out said form, she is quickly overwhelmed and would have been defeated if Ruby hadn't arrived to try and break up the battle.
  • End sends Erza flying with a punch showing that, in addition to his incredibly powerful Fire Curse, he also has Super-Strength superior to Erza's. Erza's Flame Empress Armor, which is specifically designed to resist fire, is badly damaged and burnt by End's fire punch. Erza quickly realizes that she is badly outmatched by End and that surrendering would actually be the only way to emerge unscathed or even survive. Erza shows her typical fearlessness however and immediately brings out her Armadura Fairy Armor and charges End head-on.
  • Salem, after being reformed from Jaune's Crash Magic attack, stops the mad Gate from absorbing Loke and with just one hand sends him flying through a wall. Loke immediately tells Lucy that they need to get out to the fight immediately. Loke is not worried that Salem will need backup, he is worried that she might have to try to defeat Jaune and if that happens she might accidentally kill him. Despite Jaune having access to Crash Magic, Aries' Wool magic, and Franmalth's Curse, Loke does not consider him to be a threat to his old trainer and is more worried about what Salem could do to him without even meaning to.
• Chapter 71:
  • Both Gray and Hazel demonstrate amazing powers and abilities. None of Gray's attacks seem to even faze the Gate what's more Hazel's new body lets him insert far more dust crystals into himself then he normally could. This lets move incredibly fast and Gray notes that a single hit would be enough to put him down and while Gray does not have the same level of endurance as Natsu or Erza he has still tanked hits from the likes of Silver, Invel and Ultear which shows just how absurd Hazel's physical strength truly is.
  • Gray however demonstrates that his best asset isn't his Ice Make magic or his Devil Slayer powers but his mind, when its revealed that he managed to seriously weaken Hazel by taking advantage of the Gate smashing through his walls of ice slowly causing him to have Devil Slayer frostbite.
  • Points too for Gray's blistering Shut Up, Hannibal! speech to Hazel, making him loses his cool and fly into a berserk rage.
  • Erza versus End. Erza realizes that she will never beat End in a straight fight so she like Gray uses her head. Taking advantage of End's emotional insecurity she points out how similar he is to Natsu. This enrages End and puts him off his game. However, End quickly returns the favor, lying to her about Natsu dying getting her off her game. They eventually clash head-on and while Erza is ultimately defeated, she does manage to cut off one of Ends hands.
• Chapter 72:
  • We finally see what Salem can do in a fight. Jaune is a Gate and has the powers of Franmalth and Aries as well as Crash Magic... and Salem absolutely wrecks him without much effort. Her own spell Meteor Metria hits Jaune with dozens of meteors that smashed his aura. It's revealed that Urano Metria one of Lucy's spells which she used to one-shot Jackal is something that she invented. It's further revealed that Salem has access to Elemental magic superior to any of the Maidens when she freezes Jaune in a single attack. What's more, Salem's own Transitive Curse means that she can use magic freely without a Maiden nearby giving her a huge advantage over all other magic users in Remnant.
• Chapter 75:
  • Yang versus Blake. While it is incredibly heartwrenching to see the two partners fighting each other, both wizards/huntresses put on an incredible show. The real showstoppers are what seems to be a new "Fire Devil Queen" mode for Yang that turns her fire gold, and Blake holding back Seram's Madness to put the Deathstalker she absorbed in the driver's seat of the Takeover to save Weiss.
  • Followed closely by Juvia's dynamic entrance, trapping Yang in a Water Lock just as she was about to kill Weiss.
  • Jellal's entrance is even better. He saves Pyrrha by dismantling the champion's botched Altaris spell, as in, a freaking black hole. And after making it clear he's very much the Papa Bear to Erza's Mama Bear, he wastes no time in casting his most powerful spell, Sema, to take Cinder out of the fight.
  • While the leadup to it is a Tear Jerker overall, Ruby successfully casting Fairy Glitter without Mavis' help for the first time in the story is pretty awesome on its own.
• Chapter 76
  • With Weiss lacking aura for glyphs and Blake utterly spent from bearing Seram's Madness alone, Juvia has to get the three of them over a wide chasm to Fairy Tail's airship with an angry Yang rushing in from behind. To do this, she engulfs the Team RWBY members in Water Locks and turns her body to water so she can use her control over water to levitate them the whole way. The narrative goes into great detail about how Juvia is juggling multiple spells to put off the not-quite flight, when casting even one of them would be a challenge for a normal wizard. Girl was S-Class in Phantom Lord for a reason!
  • Followed by Yang spontaneously coming up with and creating a spell for Purple Flare wings on the fly to follow, calling back to Jaune wondering if she could over twenty chapters ago and End encouraging her not to limit herself in the same conversation. It's a definite Tear Jerker as Yang's inner monologue describes her losing faith in most of her friends, but the awesome is undeniable.
  • Cinder is about to be killed by Jellal's Sema attack, so much so that the veteran Dark Action Girl nearly breaks down crying apologizing to Summer for failing her. However, she rallies herself, ready to be Defiant to the End, only to hear a pair of unexpected voices.
    Emerald & Mercury: "Unison Raid: Devil's Deluge Blaze!"
  • Salem uses her Eclipse Etherious Form to accelerate her regeneration from Ruby's Fairy Glitter, marking her titanic hydra form's first appearance in the story's present-day with an utterly terrifying entrance. Ruby, Lucy, and Loke quickly decide that their only chance of escape is to summon the Celestial Spirit King to compete with his daughter.
• Chapter 77
  • Salem vs the Celestial Spirit King. Salem shows more of her powers managing to block her fathers earth splitting attacks using a modified version of the Amaterasu spell that Hades wielded. Keep in mind that the Celestial Spirit King kept Mard Geer almost entirely on the defensive for their entire duel and that was when he was being powered by badly weakened pre time-skip Lucy. Here not only is Lucy far more powerful but she has barely gotten involved in any of the fights meaning that the King is many times stronger then he was when he fought the Underworld King and she still holds her own very well and even manages to get him on the defensive.
  • That being said the Celestial Spirit King also shows just how powerful he truly is. His Meteor Blade manages to smash Salem's Amaterasu spell and he block's multiple of her incredibly powerful attacks. Salem believes that were she to lose herself to Serams Madness he would be able to incapacitate her with Spirit Slayer Magic and its made clear that if he had a physical body she wouldn't stand a chance.
  • Pretty much everyone has a massive Oh, Crap! moment when they realize End is entering his Etherious Form and for good reason. The ancient Grimm surrounding Salem's castle start to cower in fear once he enters said form. Even more impressive and terrifying is that End actually starts to melt Devil Slayer Ice Magic. Magic that was designed specifically to be used on Demons like him is melting because of the sheer heat he is generating. He also regenerates the arm that he lost in his battle with Erza. End is outright compared to a Sun in this form.
  • This whole chapter demonstrates that End and Salem are power wise on a completely different level then anyone else in either Fairy Tail or Salem's Faction.
  • Cinder saves Mercury by eating a stray blast from the Celestial Spirit King. This is all the more impressive considering she has had limited training regarding Spirit Slayer Magic due to her trauma.
  • Lucy gets a new Star Dress form from the Celestial Spirit King himself and the first thing she does with it is blow a hole right through a quarter mile of Grimm.
• Chapter 78
  • Lucy vs End.
    • End's Etherious form pushes his already incredible power to new heights. His flames are not only much more powerful but his speed and strength have also massively increased to the extent that they rival or possibly even exceed Hazel's when he combines his Eclipse Etherious form with all the Dust Crystals he carries and unlike the big guy he can fly. The heat generated by his body is so intense that when Ruby fire her Spirt Slayer bullets at him they melt when they make contact. End's ultimate attack Fire Devil Emperor Secret Art The End is a beam attack made of supernovas and is described by Lucy as being apocalyptic.
    • Lucy's Celestial Spirit King Star Dress form actually allows her to hold End off for a time, even managing to fend off a few of his attacks. Keep in mind that End defeated Erza and Wendy while in his base form. That is nothing short of incredible and actually puts Lucy on the same level as Salem and End's Etherious/Eclipse Etherious forms (though still weaker then either and she has no real experiences in wielding such raw power). Lucy, who has always been the weakest member of the Strongest Team (not counting the Exceeds), is the most powerful member of Fairy Tail while wearing that Star Dress.
• Chapter 80:
  • Irene, one of the most gifted and powerful wizards of all time, underestimated Emerald's powers. Emerald is able to not only see through her enchantment on Wendy but also discovers that Irene is with her. Had Emerald not chosen to go along with Cinder's plans to betray Salem and her group then Wendy, Happy and Oscar would be finished.