Fanfic / Boldores and Boomsticks

Team RWBY and their Pokémon.^*Once they all fully evolve, anyway.

Boldores and Boomsticks is an ongoing RWBY and Pokémon Intercontinuity Crossover by Darwin Candidate. It can be found at SpaceBattles.com.

Team RWBY investigates a mysterious portal and fall through, winding up in the world of Pokémon. As they attempt to adjust to this strange world, it soon becomes clear that the Grimm have followed them, so they must defend this world and make allies. Meanwhile, Team JNPR and Ozpin's group attempt to find Team RWBY, while Salem attempts to exploit the Pokémon world.

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This work of fanfiction contains the following tropes:

A-F

• Abnormal Ammo: Olivia expresses bemusement at Team RWBY using powdered evolution stones (Earth's equivalent of Dust) as ammunition and gun propellant.
• Accidental Truth: Played for Laughs. Taiyang jokes about Zwei being descended from Umbramail, Lord of All Corgis to explain why he's so weird. Much later, Salem hears about Zwei, and her reaction is to mutter "Does the line of Umbramail yet live?" and wistfully dig up a carefully preserved portrait of her family... and there’s a corgi with them. Apparently, Taiyang was onto something.
• Achievements in Ignorance: Yang tries a Technical Machine on herself, and discovers that they can in fact work on humans if their Aura is unlocked. The few Aura adepts on Earth never tried it because they already "knew" it wouldn't work on humans because they had been tested on non-Aura users.
• Actually Pretty Funny: When Team RWBY arrives at Faba's lab to see a fully evolved Nebby showing the Grimm his best meat grinder impression, Yang jokingly asks if he got a haircut. Lillie doubles over in laughter at this.
• Adaptation Deviation: The Sun & Moon seasons of the anime are not canon here, despite the Pokémon world being otherwise identical to the anime. Instead, the story mixes the backgrounds of the anime and games for Alola, such as Faba being evil like his game counterpart, and Kukui and Burnet already being married. However, Mallow, Kiawe, Lana, and Sophocles are all students at Kukui's school.
• Adaptational Badass: Lillie and Casey receive unlocked Auras and Huntress training, while in the anime neither of them were more than Trainers.
• Adaptational Explanation:
  • Lt. Surge's infamous The Bully nature in the anime is explained as him believing himself to be an "impassable barrier" against who he perceives to be "weaklings" and, with the aid of his Raichu, Sarge, ensure that only "real" trainers who have had some experience and "hair on their chest" challenge Surge and move on in their Gym Challenge.
  • Pokémon 'Evolution' is acknowledged as being different from real life evolution, being more comparable to metamorphosis. So why is it called 'Evolution'? According to Prof. Oak, it's "a battle science lost to pop culture a long time ago".
  • Some of the creepier Pokédex entries are handwaved as being urban legends, old wives' tales, and bits of folklore.
• Adapted Out: As the Ultra Wormholes lead to Remnant instead of Ultra Space, every Ultra Beast except for Nebby gets this treatment by default.
• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  Weiss: Do you know any irresponsible, immature, incoherent, inconsiderate, idiotic imbeciles with a penchant for pyromania and property damage?
• Air-Vent Passageway: Lillie is able to use the air vents at Aether Paradise as shortcuts. However, she's the only human small enough to do this (and she notes that some of the vents are already too small for her), the dust kicked up was too thick for Mal, and when Shade tried to follow, the vents were too maze-like for him to know where to go.
• Alcohol-Induced Idiocy:
  • When Yang was younger, she got into Qrow's alchohol stash and thought her reflection was a separate person, so she broke all the mirrors she could find and begged Zwei not to leave her.
  • Apparently the last time Will was in Alola, he got drunk at a bar and threatened a biker with "mind bullets".
• Alliteration & Adventurers: Mr. Stone jokes that if he left his scientists unsupervised, they might end up playing Druddigons and Dragonites.
• Always Wanted to Say That: Ruby gets to say "It's Quiet… Too Quiet" on their initial mission to study an ultra wormhole.
• Amazon Chaser: Zwei, of all creatures, tries to court Absol at the Vytal Festival dance.
• Amusingly Short List: Casey makes one when asked how she's feeling after a Training from Hell session under Yang's tutelage.
  Casey: I'll list all of my parts that don't hurt… this concludes the list.
• An Arm and a Leg: Grendel's backstory is that he lost his arm to a huntsman who wanted it for a trophy. He managed to return the favor... He's later forced to chop off his other arm in order to escape Nebby.
• Animal Athlete Loophole: Inverted. A loophole in the Golden Fist Tournament's rules regarding martial artists and swordsmen allows Yang to take part in the Pokémon fighting tournament.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Downplayed and justified with Gary Oak's dismissal of Professor Cypress' warnings about the Grimm, despite his own past experiences with bizarre and inexplicable events. The professor is a well-known doomsaying crackpot who has occasionally turned out to be right in the same manner as a Stopped Clock. Gary provides a reasoned and more plausible-sounding hypothesis that the Beowolf Cypress encountered was actually a Zoroark due to the Pokémon in question being rare, really good with illusions, and having a similar body shape. He also takes things more seriously when his Arcanine reports unsettling and unfamiliar scents at the site where Cypress encountered the Grimm, and immediately stops doubting when he sees them for himself.
  Gary: Hey, Cypress? [...] I'm ready to stop being a skeptic now.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Shade uses a series of these to make Whisper realize that no, Weiss hasn't stopped caring about her.
• Armor-Piercing Response: Weiss reacts with her usual irritability when Gary and company arrive and say they'd been looking for Team RWBY. She doesn't have a response to Riley's Lucario's explanation.
  Lucario: Because an army of horrible monsters attacked a town and the heroines that saved the day- and more importantly actually seemed to know what was going on- vanished into the night. A lot of people want to thank you, and a lot more want to ask you for advice.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When Faba is speculating on Salem's goals, he sarcastically lists world domination, revenge, and stealing all the cheese in the world as possibilities.
• Ash Face: The aftermath of Yang demonstrating Flamethrower on her dad.
• Assimilation Backfire: Lt. Surge, Weiss, and Ruby just defeated the body of a Geist made for itself from construction equipment, but the Geist survived the finishing blow and goes for the first object it can find... a Porta-Potty. After a few seconds, it comes back out looking ready to gag before Lt. Surge puts it out its misery.
• Assurance Backfire: Whisper, noticing Lillie's fear of confronting Grimm for the first time, points out that that Ruby and Weiss will be able to protect her. This just makes her feel more inadequate.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses:
  • Zwei's introduction to Absol. The corpses being Grimm corpses, he's back at ground level in a few seconds.
  • Sabra and Lux nap on defeated members of Team Skull.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Yang's preferred method of fighting, best described with her "strategy" for the Golden Fist Tournament.
  Yang: I call it 'Operation: Hit Them 'Til I Win'. It’s a little complicated, but I think I can pull it off.
  • Eventually deconstructed with her repeated attempts to beat Tapu Koko, who sees the lack of improvement in response to his challenge as disrespectful.
• Attack the Mouth: In a rage, Lux leaps into the mouth of a Sea Feilong and begins burning it.
• Aura Vision: Since Weiss' use of multiple types of Dust makes many moves redundant, she is studying with Riley and Lucario to learn this ability from them.
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • This is why Lux passed up learning Focus Blast. It takes forever to charge, it moves super slow^note reflecting the extremely shaky 70% accuracy that makes players call it Focus Miss, and it tires out the user quickly^note Focus Blast has five Power Points in the games, eight maximum if you raise the limit with PP Up/Max.
  • Arthur Watts questions why Faba would have a custom painted lab coat, since the whole point of the item is to be disposed of if something hazardous is spilled on it.
• Badass Bystander:
  • When the Grimm attack Golden Valley, a few people actually call out their Pokémon to fight back.
  • Later, Team RWBY is trying to track down the retreating Grimm, and they come across several wild Pokémon actively fighting them, from Beedrills fighting Lancers and a Tyranitar fending off Ursas. They even help the Huntresses by pointing them where to go.
• Badass Normal: While a lot of high-level trainers, gym leaders, and Champions are this to some degree, special mention goes to Lieutenant Surge, who manages to kill several Grimm with his non-Dust powered handgun, made more impressive by the fact that he does so using hollow-point ammunition, which Ruby specifically comments is less effective against Grimm due to their lack of organs.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Ozpin and Ironwood discuss recent events at Beacon, including incidents that led to the main hall getting damaged and the dance having to be pushed back (specifically a Bullhead pilot mishap, something involving a coffeemaker and a firehose likely related to Ozpin, and Cardin insulting Coco while she was in earshot). They conclude that things are quieter than usual. Ironwood is also proud to say that Atlas Academy's Dust storage has only exploded three times recently.
  • Following the battle at Aether Paradise, Faba tells Salem that he wiped out the entire database at the foundation, keeping the heroes from building a stable portal back to Remnant for years. When Wicke checks with an IT technician, he confirms that it's true. Then Wicke asks how long will it take to get the database back online, and the technician answers that thanks to the offsite backups it will take about an hour or two to get it back, with only data from the last few hours before the attack missing.
  • When Kali first sees Zwei, her eyes widen, her breath hitches, her daughter groans... and then Kali starts cuddling and babying the corgi.
• Bait-and-Switch Comment: When Ruby and her two partners are chosen to spar against Team CDRL, one of the spectators asks if it's unfair since it is 3 vs. 4. Professor Goodwitch responds thusly:
  Goodwitch: It isn't fair in the slightest. As Huntsmen and Huntresses, unfair matchups and poor odds are simply a fact of life, and one must be prepared to deal with them. Team CRDL will simply need to buckle down and try their best.
• Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: Initially, Lusamine was implied to draw heavily from the game version of the character, given her interest in the Grimm and her disdain toward Team RWBY for killing them. Chapter 36 reveals that she actually is closer to her Anime self and was deliberately misled by Salem in regards to the Grimm.
• The Bartender: Oranguru moonlights as one, advising Blake in her issues with Adam.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Blake does this to a troop of Passimian when their game ball ends up in her hands. There is a moment when it seems like they'd get angry, but then they all start laughing and give her her own coconut helmet (much to Shade and Mal's glee).
• Benevolent Boss: Mr. Stone, to the point Yang explicitly says he's the A Father to His Men type. It actually upsets Weiss to realize that Mr. Stone proves one can be both successful and kind when her own father isn't.
• Berserk Button:
  • Yang's hair, as in canon. She absolutely pummels Cassidy and Butch's Charizard and Aggron when the latter damages it.
  • Team Rocket may commit crimes and brag about them, but they hate it when someone frames them for something that they didn't do.
• Better the Devil You Know: Played for Laughs with Team RWBY's reaction to meeting Butch and Cassidy.
  Blake: Did… did we just get threatened through poetry and interpretive dance?
  Weiss: I… think that's what just happened.
  Ruby: Is it wrong that I kinda miss Roman Torchwick?
• Big Eater: Casey reasons that this is a side effect of an unlocked Aura, as both Team RWBY and her Pokémon eat a lot. This is confirmed later when she eats a similarly large amount after her Aura is unlocked and barely feels full.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Ruby snipes a Beowolf right before it manages to attack and kill Nox.
  • Ruby arrives at a Grimm attack and kills a Beowolf an instant before it would have killed a young boy and his Rattata.
  • Gary, Tracey and Professor Oak show up in time to help Team RWBY against Tyrian Callows, with Oak's Dragonite completely turning the tables.
  • Blake and Yang finally manage to beach a stubborn Feilong, but the giant sea serpent still won't go down... until Jasmine and her Steelix show up.
  • While Lillie put up a good fight trying to stop Faba and Watts, she was ultimately overwhelmed in spite of her Semblance. Team RWBY had arrived, but they wouldn't be able to get to her in time. Then Nebby evolved into Solgaleo and started tearing the Grimm apart.
• Big "WHAT?!": During the reunion between Blake and her parents in chapter 50, Blake explains what the Vale chapter of the White Fang has been up to. This leads to Ghira shouting, "Adam did WHAT!?" loud enough for Ozpin and General Ironwood to hear from the former's office.
• Bland-Name Product: Lt. Surge owns a Desert Braviary, and his loving description leaves no doubt what his gun is supposed to be.
• Blasphemous Boast: When Salem hears about Legendaries from Faba, she has this to say:
  I have experience with so-called Gods, and I'd like to know what I need to kill before we begin making headway on a new base on Earth.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: Butch starts to monologue about Team Rocket's new, super-strong Pokéballs that can steal Pokémon from trainers before Ruby shoots the one he was holding.
• Body-Count Competition: Whisper competes with Rein to see who can destroy the most Grimm. She's upset when she realizes that she talked too much and the wave has already been defeated.
• Boomerang Bigot: Played for Laughs with Casey, who finds fanboys creepy. When Weiss lists the ways she shows her devotion to the Electabuzz baseball team, Casey doesn't get the point.
• Boom, Headshot!:
  • When Ruby first meets Nox she saves him by putting a sniper round through the head of a Beowolf that was about to kill him.
  • Lt. Surge finishes off the Geist with one of these.
  • Watts does this to Lillie as she takes out a horde of Grimm. If not for her Aura, it would've been bad.
• Boring, but Practical:
  • A snobbish Devon Corp. scientist confines several captured Grimm in high-tech force field cages. Team RWBY promptly points out that this is a terrible idea, as the Grimm's endless stamina lets them keep attacking the force fields and drain the batteries far faster than expected, and they would likely fail in less than a day at the current rate. Ruby points that that the lack of fail-safes with force fields is exactly why Remnant uses metal cages to contain Grimm despite also having hard-light tech, with the added benefits that you can easily tell how badly a metal cage has been damaged just by looking at it, and the sound of a Grimm breaking out of a metal cage is loud enough to alert anyone nearby.
  • Using Wiffle bats, foam dart guns, and similar "toy" items for training Casey and Lillie. Yes, it looks silly, as Weiss notes, but they provide good reflex and stamina training with minimal risk of injury, as well as practice for Aura reinforcement. Plus they're cheap, so they won't strain your wallet too much when they break.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: When she has her first encounter with Team Rocket, Weiss uses Ruby's "Are you robbing me?"
• Brain Bleach: When Blake shows off her Ghostium-Z crystal, she admits she can't remember how she got it. A flashback shows that Oranguru had to break out the "Forget-Me-Shots" when Blake and her Pokémon appeared in his bar, traumatized beyond belief by what they had experienced from the Totem Mimikyu's signature Z-move.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs:
  • Ruby told Nora that Penny has "lasers, and swords, and laser swords".
  • Bruno sighs about how the day's events included "First portal monsters, then a scorpion assassin, then portal monsters helping a scorpion assassin!"
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Downplayed example, and an Establishing Character Moment from Cyric Cypress in Chapter 1:
  Cypress: "Too vague," they'll say. "It's entirely speculation." "The evidence is circumstantial." "How did you get this number."
• Breath Weapon: Thanks to using a TM on herself, Yang can use the move Flamethrower.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday:
  • Used as a joke to describe Ash's involvement at the events of Shamouti.
    Tracey: Oh, he saved the world by stopping the idiot, fulfilling an ancient prophecy that mentioned him by name, and riding Lugia into battle. So y'know, Tuesday for him.
  • Blake calls back to that conversation a few chapters later when Team RWBY is describing the incident with Roman using the stolen Paladin and punching Yang through a concrete pillar to demonstrate Aura's defensive capabilities.
    Blake: Stolen military prototype piloted by an international criminal we'd been chasing for a while, and finally tracked down while he was presenting it to the terrorist organization that hired him [...] So y'know, Tuesday for us.
  • In the first chapter, when Cypress first called Oak about being on the verge of catastrophe, Oak asks if it's Tuesday already.
  • Team RWBY is touched by the heartfelt gratitude PNN and the citizens of Earth express for what to them is just doing their job.
• Call-Back: From Chapter 12 back to Chapter 2.
  Yang: Aw, I never would have pegged you for being superstitious, Weissy! Are you afraid of big, bad Murphy?
  Weiss: I never would have pegged you for being superstitious, Yang! Are you afraid of the big, bad ghosts?
  • From chapter 14 to Episode 1: Ruby Rose:
  Ruby: To one of Torchwick's men "Are you...robbing me?"
  Weiss: to Team Rocket “Let me be certain. Are you robbing me?”
• Calling the Old Man Out: When Winter presumes that Weiss has been wasting her time on Earth, Weiss coldly replies that it would have been nice to catch up with her sister instead of getting hung up on training and duty.
• Carnivore Confusion: Word of God is that regular, nonsentient animals do exist and are eaten by humans and carnivorous Pokémon. At one point, Tracey's Scyther muses on the non-Pokémon creatures that he used to hunt alongside his swarm.
  FAQ: This thread is a 100% cannibalism-free zone.
• Cassandra Truth:
  • When a Haunter mentions wanting to scare Yang, Ruby's Zubat warns him that he'd previously seen Yang coldcock a Machoke and headbutt a Lucario. Haunter remains unconvinced until he catches a blast from Ember Celica in the face.
  • Averted with the League; after seeing footage of Yang's performance in the tournament and the following battle in Golden Valley, they are eager to listen to Team RWBY's advice.
• The Cavalry: During the fight in Golden Valley, Riley gathers the other tournament competitors and any other trainers who want to help and leads them to attack the Grimm. Their poor tactics almost get a few trainers killed at first, but by fighting side by side with Team RWBY they beat back a Grimm horde with no fatalities.
• Censored for Comedy: Yang's beatdown of some Team Skull grunts is treated this way.
  This senseless and brutal massacre was censored for the sake of basic decency.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Chapter 18 is titled 'Sudden Onset Cerebus Syndrome', with the arrival of Tyrian Callows. The comedic tone returns in the next chapter.
• Chain Lethality Enabler: Lillie's Semblance works like the ability Beast Boost, as stated by Word of God, giving them a boost to their highest stat (in this case Special Attack) for every opponent beat in relation to their strength. Though also slightly averted in that it's pointed out that hordes of faceless mooks will quickly lead to diminishing returns.
• Changing The Uncomfortable Subject:
  • When Team RWBY and Riley are comparing notes, Weiss asks who unlocked Blake's Aura. She's clearly uncomfortable having to talk about her former mentor Adam, and so Yang abruptly asks Lucario what being inside a Pokéball is like. Lucario notices the intent and doesn't fight it.
  • When Team RWBY are uncomfortable after explaining the bigotry that Faunus suffer on Remnant, Gary says "Speaking of changing the subject..."
  • When Will brings Team RWBY and Casey to Alola, his Xatu brings up incidents that occurred in bars on previous visits to Alola, causing him to change the subject, and rather loudly.
• Chekhov's Gun: The thunder stones on display in the lounge of Lt. Surge's gym are a textbook example. They're briefly mentioned at the start of the chapter, and by the end of the chapter Weiss is using one to kill a Geist.
• Child Soldiers: One of the things that horrifies Lusamine the most about her perception of Remnant is the idea that children who on Earth would be starting Pokémon journeys are instead trained to fight and kill Grimm at Combat Schools like Signal.
• Choke Holds: Blake knows a few sleeper holds, though she claims not to be very good at using them.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Salem pins Faba as having it from the moment he joins her ranks.
  Salem: That man is going to betray the shit out of me.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Prof. Cypress, who was a prominent character during the very beginning of the story, has neither been seen, heard from, or mentioned since Chapter 19.
  • He finally shows up again in Chapter 50 as part of Earth's delegation to Remnant, being seen taking notes on Professor Port's stories.
• *Click* Hello: Cinder manages to escape from Absol in their scuffle atop the CCTS tower by diving out and landing safely on the ground... and is interrupted by the series of clicks from unsafetied guns as Ironwood, Ozpin and a backup squad surround her.
• Clothes Make the Superman: After a demonstrated lack of skill with any weapon, Lillie makes her Huntress weapon her jacket, embroidered with Dust. She can use it to project Hard Light constructs to use as weapons.
• Color Failure: After Blake and her team challenge the Totem Mimikyu, they're so rattled by his signature Z-Move that Mal's black fur has turned white.
• Combat Stilettos: Weiss, as in canon given the point of time in which this takes place regarding RWBY, has combat wedges. They're brought up twice during the story, once in this story (involving Cassidy's Team Rocket uniform, whose boots are thigh-high with proper stilettos) and once in Lazy Beacon Days.
  Yang: (during Lazy Beacon Days when Weiss brings up something in chapter 13) Maybe you should've thought about that before going hiking in heels.
• Comforting Comforter: After the incident that traumatized her, Lillie wakes up to find someone tucked her in. It's subverted, unfortunately, since after seeing Lusamine petting a big Grimm Lillie wants to stay far away from her.
• Comic-Book Time: Downplayed. Years have passed since Ash started out, so many young Indigo League-era characters like Gary and Casey are teenagers now, while the Alolan characters are their usual ages.
• Condescending Compassion: After Yang and her team beat Totem Kommo-o, she congratulates her daughter Sabra for finally beating her, after spending the whole battle mocking her and calling her weak. Sabra coldly retorts that two weeks of being built up by Yang did more for her than the years of being torn down by her mother, and turns her back on her.
• Contrived Coincidence: Lampshaded when Blake notices how, despite the Pokéballs containing the new Pokémon partners for Team RWBY in Alola being chosen at random, Ruby and Weiss got a Rowlet and Piplup, respectively, both rather fitting for them, with Kukui noting that Olivia had commented on fate making sure that the right matches were made. She then tries to do a fake-out by grabbing the fourth Poké-ball instead of the third, only to end up with a Litten, and Yang being left with a Jangmo-o.
• Cool vs. Awesome: During the tour of Devon Corp., Ruby and Weiss get into a debate of which scientific inovation is more impressive; the ability to revive extinct pokemon from fossils, or the ability to control the weather.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: The Ghost-types in the abandoned mansion Team RWBY spends a night in leave scary messages in what seems to be blood but is actually raspberry jam.
• Cooldown Hug: Guzma does this to his partner Golisopod to talk him out of an R-fueled berserker rage, as well as help him calm down afterward.
• Covert Pervert: Blake has an entire bookshelf full of erotic novels that everyone pretends not to know about, even though she hides them directly behind her textbooks which she takes out every single day. And then Whisper sneaks a few to read.
• Crazy-Prepared: When Cinder infiltrated the Beacon CCTS tower, she considered the possibility that the "weird dog" (Absol) seen around campus may have been able to track her by smell... so she brought a peppermint bomb just in case, and even applied some of the oil to herself to cover her natural scent.
• Crossover Power Acquisition:
  • Team RWBY discovers that human Aura-users can learn Pokémon moves when Yang accidentally uses the TM for Flamethrower. As the story progresses, the rest of the team learns moves of their own.
  • Casey and Lillie have their Auras unlocked by Team RWBY, with Lillie gaining her semblance (based on the ability Beast Boost) by the time the heroes break into the Aether Foundation.
• Crossover Villain-in-Chief: Salem manipulates Lusamine and the Aether Foundation to her own ends. Faba eventually works directly for her and hires Team Skull to attack RWBY and their friends.
• Crushing Handshake: Yang and Tracy shake hands when they first meet. She nearly breaks his hand.
• The Cuckoolander Was Right: Cypress is seen as a conspiracy nut by most, but he has accurately predicted things like the Shamouti Island Incident, the potential danger of the Unown, and now the threat of the Grimm. This is the main reason that Oak bothers to put up with him.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The world of Pokémon and Remnant's Huntsmen/Huntresses are something of a mutual Outside-Context Problem, which results in several painful lessons for those who didn't know what their opponent was capable of.
  • Weiss' "battle" against five Team Rocket grunts and their Pokémon doesn't even merit an on-screen beatdown.
  • When Butch and Cassidy send out their Pokémon to attack Yang, Aggron's attack clips off a few strands of Yang's hair. The point-of-view switches to a nearby Gyarados, who notices Aggron and Charizard's cries of pain and watches the very one-sided beatdown before deciding it would be better off moving to the other side of the lake.
  • Tyrian dishes one out to everyone at Professor Oak's lab right up until the Professor's Dragonite gets involved, who completely wipes the floor with him while his increasingly desperate attacks can't even scratch it.
  • Yang vs. Tapu Koko, who was Just Toying With Her the entire time.
  • Yang vs. three Team Skull grunts is Censored for Comedy.
    • Two chapters later, Team Skull gets its revenge, as Plumeria and her Salazzle defeat Yang, Sabra, and Lux without a scratch.
  • Two of the exhibition battles that Team RWBY and their Pokémon do against some of Beacon's teams end up in this way. Ruby and her partners completely decimate Team CRDL in just three moves, and Blake's illusory team have Team SSSN completely running in circles.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: Yang's fourth battle with Tapu Koko has her using tactical ideas after Hala manages to get her to stop being Unskilled, but Strong. It's still clear that she couldn't have won, but she actually impressed Koko.
  Laughing softly, Hala strode up and clapped a comradely hand on her shoulder, Lux and Sabra on his heels and likewise beaming with pride in their trainer. "Well done, Yang! Well done indeed!"
  "Wha-?" She stammered. "But- I didn't-"
  "Of course you didn't win!" the old man boomed. "He's a god! But do you know how long it's been since a non-Legendary has made him work that hard for his win?"
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Gary's Alakazam threatens to do this to Tyrian as retribution for his actions at Oak's lab.
  Alakazam: Looks like my apprentice has learned well. I’d love to finish what she started and cut out your heart with a spoon for what you did to my trainer's friends.
  Tyrian: ...Oddly specific.
  Alakazam: *holds up spoons, generates Psycho Cut*
  Tyrian: Not hyperbole then, very impressive.
• Cuteness Proximity: Happens several times, particularly when Team RWBY encounters one of the cuter Pokémon.
  • Ruby's reaction to meeting Gary's Arcanine.
    Ruby: DOGGY!
  • Karen strongly denies making anything resembling a Squee after Blake revealed her cat ears.
  • When Ruby and Weiss first see a Rowlet and Piplup (their respective new teammates in Alola), they both Squee "birdy".
  • Invoked when Yang spars against Hala's Bewear, who induces this on her by using the move Charm.
    Yang grinned at that, even as she lowered herself into a ready stance across from the giant plush toy… who was just too cute how could she possibly beat up on a harmless widdle-
    GODDAMN CHARM!
  • Winter cuddles Zwei with a whole lot of Baby Talk just like her sister, much to Qrow and Absol's amusement. Kali also does the same, much to her daughter's dismay.
• Dead Person Conversation: Tapu Fini uses her mist to let Weiss speak to her grandfather, who advises her to pursue her destiny and abandon the SDC. Yang and Ruby later get one with Summer offscreen.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: The girls are a little apprehensive about Kukui simply giving them their second Pokémon, especially given that their first ones were all met naturally and effectively chose them of their own free will.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Karen, when explaining Team Rocket's motives.
  Karen: They want money, power, and money, and they'll do almost anything but actually work to get it.
  Blake: You said money twice.
  Karen: They like money.
• Description Cut:
  • One scene has Teams JNPR and CFVY discussing how Team RWBY must be faring in the other world beyond the portals, battling for their lives against legions of Grimm without rest... interspersed with scenes of RWBY enjoying the Alolan atmosphere.
  • After Faba escapes to Remnant with Watts, he tells Salem that he scrubbed the whole Aether Foundation database before he left, and it'll take years for them to replicate his research. Cut back to the Foundation, where a tech is telling Wicke that the database was indeed scrubbed... but thanks to the backups, they'll have it all back up in an hour or two.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Tapu Koko is shocked when Yang uses the Fire Z-Move with her Pokémon acting the role of the trainer during their fight.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Tapu Koko admits this when his latest spar with Yang shatters the large variety of loaded Dust shells in Ember Celica, causing a multi-elemental explosion.
  • Lillie ducks through some shortcuts in the Aether Foundation vents to get to her mum faster. It's only after she comes out that she realizes that the vents are too small for anyone else to follow her, and that she forgot to tell anyone who could follow her where to go in the maze.
  • When Faba destroys the Aether Foundation computer network, he forgot to get the backups, meaning that they'll only need a few hours to get everything in order.
  • Po Town's backstory, twofold. First, the real estate mogul who built the town, never investigated why a seeming real estate gold mine was left untapped, leaving him blindsided by the fact that he'd built his new resort town in a place that's hit the worst by the seasonal hurricanes. Then, he gets the idea to build a massive stormwall around the town, which works... except it's blocking the ocean view that was the whole reason it was built.
  • Blake decided to hide her shelf full of erotic literature on a hidden shelf behind the other books... including the textbooks that RWBY uses on a daily basis, so their existence is an Open Secret among both her team and JNPR.
• Dies Wide Open: The first dead body in the series belongs to an Aether employee who fell victim to a Grimm. Blake takes a moment to close his eyes before Team RWBY continues their fight to Lusamine's office.
• Disaster Dominoes: The Absol stuck in Remnant engineers some at the Beacon Academy dance (possibly by redirecting Qrow's bad luck Semblance). Just as Team CDRL show up to start harassing Jaune, Neptune, who is retreating from an irate girl (presumably Nebula Violette of Team NDGO), bumps into a table (which Absol weakened earlier), causing it to collapse and catapult the punch bowl into the air, landing squarely on CDRL. This also gets Jaune and Pyrrha to share an involuntary hug when he tugs her out of the way.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Ruby's Rowlet Marian has a visible crush on Yang's Combusken Lux. When Lux evolves into Blaziken, Marian is completely silent and her beak is hanging open, and when Nox pokes her, she just unblinkingly tips over onto her side.
  Marian: I need to evolve immediately.
• Diving Save: When Yang and her team are battling a Totem Salazzle for a Fire-type Z-Crystal, a baby Kangaskhan loses her balance because of the vibrations from the fight and starts falling into the crater. Luckily, Yang manages to act quickly and uses Ember Celica to propel herself out and grab her in time, throwing the child to safety before managing to propel herself onto the crater wall.
• Dog Walks You: When Taiyang tasks Jaune with walking Zwei as part of a Wax On, Wax Off assignment... This is what happens.
  Ren: And does this training method really produce results?
  Taiyang: I dunno. God knows I wasn’t gonna walk him.
• Doomsayer: Professor Cypress is constantly coming up with new doomsday-level threats to the world. Most of the time he's wrong, but not always...
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: They're called Legendary Pokémon for a reason, Yang...
• Dope Slap: Taiyang, seeing that Jaune is oblivious to Pyrrha's interest in him, gives Jaune one of these hard enough to knock him over, along with some advice he wished someone had given him as a teenager.
  Taiyang: ASK HER, STUPID!
• Dragged Off to Hell: A cenitaur gets dragged back down its tunnel and dispatched a second later by a horde of Alolan Diglett, fighting all the while.
• Dramatic Irony: After Team RWBY finally gets back to Remnant, Winter admonishes Weiss for slacking off on her training, asking how their grandfather would react. Tapu Fini actually used her powers to let Weiss talk with the deceased Nicholas Schnee, who was both far more casual in general and proud of Weiss' accomplishments then Winter assumes.
• Dynamic Entry: Referenced when a Sharpedo bursts out of the water to help attack a powerful Grimm.
• Electronic Eyes: Watts uses his knowledge of cybernetics to replace the eye Tyrian lost to Whisper.
• Elemental Punch: Yang figures out how to use Fire Punch while training Lux, and later Tapu Koko teaches her to use Thunder Punch as a reward for doing so well against him.
• Engineered Heroics: Faba originally intended to use Type: Null to go around defeating the Grimm to become famous, using the wormhole generator to choose where they appeared to ensure there were witnesses.
• Entertainingly Wrong:
  • Played for Drama - Lusamine's first encounter with the Grimm was when one came through the Ultra Wormholes and tried to attack her staff. Given that it was visibly injured (it had weapons sticking out of its body), she assumed its aggression was due to mistreatment by humans, as the Pokémon Earth has never had any Always Chaotic Evil creatures on it who want to attack, kill, and eat humans just because.
  • Another instance Played for Drama - when Weiss and Winter have their first heart to heart talk after RWBY returns, when the latter learns that Weiss is not the leader of her team, she assumes that her sister is still a bit sore over that and is trying to 'fake it till you make it'. It never occurs to her that Weiss has already made peace with this. She also assumes that Weiss slacked off from training out of laziness to focus on enjoying being in Alola, failing to realize that Weiss was actually happier there than she was for practically all of her life in Atlas.
  • As Yang is demonstrating her new array of Pokémon moves to the Beacon staff, from Sunny Day to Earthquake, a nearby bird flies off and transforms back into Raven, furious that Ozpin has made Yang the new Fall Maiden.
• Epic Fail: A Training Montage shows Lillie's lack of skill with every weapon she tries. A shorter one shows that Casey is equally untalented with Dust.
• Even Evil Has Standards: For all of Guzma's antagonism and loyalty to Lusamine, after Faba's gift of R sends his Golisopod and several other Skull Pokémon on a rampage, he tells Team RWBY what they want to know.
• Everyone Can See It: Everyone who finds out that Jaune and Pyrrha have finally started dating can only think that it's about time.
• Everyone Has Standards: Dr. Pinot may be a condescending, arrogant Know-it-all, but even he is flabbergasted when RWBY relay their experiences dealing with Dr. Merlot's attempts to make the Grimm more dangerous.
  Dr. Pinot: That sounds like... a remarkably terrible idea. I mean… I assume you mean someone tried to make these monsters more dangerous?
  Blake: It was a bad couple of days. Fortunately, he was enough of a cliché mad scientist that his secret island base had an actual self-destruct mechanism.
  Dr. Pinot: ...Wow.
• Evil All Along: Faba, to the surprise of absolutely no one who has played Episode RR. He had learned about Salem's true motives and was working to assist her, believing he deserved an even better position than Aether Paradise Chief of Staff.
• Evil Gloating: Tupp shouts a "Team Skull fo' life!" as they blind Team RWBY with Poison Gas and kidnap Nebby, to make sure they know who owned them. Guzma and his elites aren't as impressed since it means they know exactly who was responsible and where to find them.
• Every Proper Lady Should Curtsy: Absol does her best version of one since extending a paw to shake could come off as threatening due to her claws.
• Evil Is One Big, Happy Family: Much to Team RWBY's disbelief when the Grimm enable Tyrian to escape.
• Evil Learns of Outside Context: After learning about Pokémon and Earth, Salem manipulates Lusamine into allowing large numbers of Grimm to stay at Aether Paradise.
• Eye Am Watching You: Tapu Koko takes a moment to make this gesture at Casey and Lillie before zooming away.
• Eye Scream: Tyrian loses an eye to Whisper's Psycho Cut.
• Face Doodling: A variant. Blake dyes Mal pink while he sleeps.
• Face Palm:
  • Yang is exasperated by Ruby's enthusiasm even in an alternate dimension.
  • Watts brings his hand to his face when Faba acts like a hundred Grimm are a significant threat to Team RWBY.
• Face Your Fears: Lillie asks for Huntress training to get over her fear of the Grimm.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Gladion announces his presence to Blake, Yang, and Casey with a big speech about how easily he will crush them. They can only stand there dumbstruck until he finishes, whereupon they start laughing uproariously at the skinny 13-year-old wearing all black under the hot sun trying to act like an edge lord (or as Blake puts it, an edge squire).
• The Fair Folk: Ruby brings up the trope in regards to Fairy-types in Chapter 32.3. Weiss, not familiar with the older, scarier stories, is dismissive of the idea until they talk to Olivia, who tells them about Tapu Lele, who she describes as the most Fae of all the Guardian Deities despite them all being part Fairy-type, being completely unrestrained in battle because her ability to heal means that she feels no need to hold herself back, and her mood can apparently change from kind and generous to self-centered and uncaring fairly easily. Olivia then confirms that the Fairy type was named after mythological beings from old tales, especially from the Galar region, the Pokémon world's version of the U.K., where many stories of The Fair Folk originate in our world, and that she feels that the name is accurate and that Fairy-Types are as vengeful as they are adorable.
  • Tapu Koko displays this behavior after Yang starts treating his challenges as mere spars and not showing any improvement, showing his displeasure at the apparent disrespect with progressively more insulting and humourless Curb Stomp Battles.
• Fake Twin Gambit: Nanu pretends to be his twin brother Nuna to get out of telling Blake about Tapu Bulu. She's not fooled, but he doesn't care.
• False Flag Operation: Chapter 24: Untrue Banner Procedures, contains two instances. First, Blake's Gastly, Shade, uses an illusion to make it look like a caged Beowolf can talk in an attempt to get information out of a Pokémon working for Team Rocket. Later, it's revealed that the criminals aren't actually part of Team Rocket, they're independent mercenaries (working for Faba) who were paid extra to frame Team Rocket for the theft.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: How much of a "villain" he is is debatable, but this is Blake, Yang and Casey's In-Universe opinion of Gladion when they meet, given that he's wearing all black in the tropical land of Alola.
  Casey: The only mistake here is your fashion sense. A long-sleeved shirt and a hoodie? All in black? Are you trying to get heatstroke?
• Fear Is Normal: Lillie collapses in shame when after all her training from Team RWBY, she still can't muster the courage to fight the Grimm. Ruby consoles her by telling her that everyone on Team RWBY is afraid, and that courage is carrying on in spite of fear. Ruby suggests she find something that scares her more than the Grimm, like Nebby being hurt, and use it as motivation.
• Fear Is the Appropriate Response: Faba has a completely rational response to seeing Nebby evolve into Solgaleo. Specifically, he freaks.
  Watts: Calm yourself, Doctor. There is no need to unman yourself like thi-
  Faba: (Grabs Watts by the lapels) There is a LITERAL SUN GOD in my LAB and it HATES ME. This is an excellent time to panic. There is NO BETTER TIME TO PANIC, do you hear me?!
• Fighting Your Friend: When Guzma's Golisopod is dosed with the Psycho Serum R and goes berserk, Guzma takes it upon himself to fix things and commands his other Pokémon to hold down their teammate until he cools off.
• Fireball Eyeballs: When Lillie is traumatized by the Grimm, the thing that scared her the most were its eyes that burned with hate like coals.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: Weiss used the timeskip after chapter 45 to learn Tri Attack, a move that shoots beams of those elements.
• Fisticuff-Provoking Comment: Two Schnee guards are trying to get Teams CFVY and SSSN to get away from (read:trying to be friendly with) Whitley and being as antagonistic as possible, but the teams don't rise to the jibes until one of them calls the two Faunus present "White Fang pets", something that Coco doesn't take kindly to.
  Coco: Okay, I guess we're doing this now.
• Flat "What":
  • Blake's reaction to seeing a Pokéball in action for the first time.
  • Riley's reaction to learning that Team RWBY are technically aliens.
  • Blake's reaction to Karen's description of Team Aqua and Team Magma's goals.
  • Casey's reaction to learning about the events of Shamouti and that Ash was involved.
  • Ruby's reaction to an Aether Foundation worker accusing her of slaughtering confused, panicking Grimm.
  • Yang's reaction to hearing about Salem, the Queen of the Grimm.
  • Yang's reaction to Ruby mentioning certain magazines she hid while at Signal.
• Flawed Prototype:
  • Ruby gives Casey and Lillie mock-ups of their weapons to practice with. Due to her inexperience and lack of the proper tools and materials, Casey's High Voltage Enhanced Impactor isn't insulated properly, and Lillie's Tricked-Out Gloves can only make a tiny force field.
  • The first successful Ultra Wormhole generation device made with the data Faba left behind generates a lot more heat in use than expected, even with the heatsink, so it can currently only open a portal for a few minutes at a time.
• Flowers of Romance: At the Vytal Festival Dance, Absol gets a freshly-picked daisy from, of all characters, Zwei the corgi.
• Fluffy Dry Cat: After Yang gets beaten again by Tapu Koko, her blonde hair is poofed out into an afro crackling with electricity, resembling a "tempestuous dandelion".
• Follow the Chaos: How Gary Oak, Riley, and Tracey manage to track Team RWBY after they left town to follow a Grimm horde.
• Foreboding Fleeing Flock: Used as a way to get Gary Oak, Riley, and Tracey to Follow the Chaos to find Team RWBY.
• Fossil Revival: While Team RWBY tours Devon Corp.'s headquarters, Mr. Stone shows them the fossil revival machine, much to Ruby's amazement. She gets in an argument with Weiss about whether it's more impressive than weather control.
• Furry Reminder: Even though Pokémon act with all the intelligence and personality of humans, they do occasionally display animal-like behavior.
  • Mal attempts to pounce on Blake's ribbon mid-sentence.
  • When Casey shows surprise that Lux is able to handle Yang's extra-spicy pizza (noting that being Fire-Type does not make you immune to spicy food), Prof. Oak explains that as a bird-like Pokémon he shares their natural immunity to the capsaicin in pepper seeds.

G-M

• Gag Nose: Professor Cypress' nose is apparently long and thin enough that it's been compared to a Nosepass' or an icepick.
• Genre Savvy:
  • While Guzma does trust Lusamine, he does not trust Faba at all and decides against using the vials of R Faba gave him and his team to help them deal with Team RWBY.
  • When Faba is fully taken into Remnant and into Salem's retinue, Salem immediately pegs that the scientist "is going to betray the shit out of" her.
• The Ghost: As explained in the author's note in chapter 1, Ash is not in the story because he is "off having adventures in whatever region suddenly always existed when Generation 8 comes out" (Galar, as it turns out), having not stayed in Alola after his vacation with his mom. He exists, his achievements happened, but he is Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Story. However, other characters do occasionally mention him, and when RWBY realizes that they keep hearing about him, the only comment is that Ash really gets around.
• Gibberish of Love: When Jaune first sees his date Pyrrha in her dress, his smooth line generator fails him and he can only let out a "wow". Luckily for him, that expression of awe is enough to make Pyrrha blush.
• The Glomp:
  • On RWBY's first visit to the Oak Ranch, Weiss gets buried under an overly gregarious Muk, much to everyone's amusement.
  • Blake gets one from her parents when they show up in Vale, much to her surprise.
• God Guise:
  • When Ruby rescues a little boy and his Rattata from the Grimm, the kid mistakes her for an angel.
  • Tyrian sees Salem as a goddess.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • Salem views an Absol arriving in Remnant as such a massive obstacle to her plans that she orders Cinder to prioritize killing the Pokémon, even if it means blowing her cover and sacrificing their plan to claim the rest of the Fall Mantle.
  • Guzma's Golisopod is willing to dose himself with Psycho Serum and go berserk to protect his trainer from Team RWBY.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Much to Watts' annoyance with Faba.
• Going Native: Team RWBY adopts various local customs like trainership and Alola's Island Challenge while on Earth.
• Golden Mean Fallacy: While staying in a haunted house, Zubat tries to persuade its Ghost-type residents into not scaring Team RWBY, who spent much of the day fighting off Grimm. The Ghost-Type Pokémon refuse to believe him, and want a chance to scare humans since they hadn't for a while. The best that Zubat could get was that the Ghost-Types would wait for a few hours so the girls could get their sleep. While they were satisfied, Zubat felt guilty afterward for letting his trainer Ruby and her friends be scared.
• Gone Horribly Right: Whisper starts taunting and poking Sabra, in an attempt to provoke her into learning Outrage. Instead, Sabra gets so mad she evolves into a Hakamo-o and punches her in the face with a Sky Uppercut.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Lusamine is utterly horrified and baffled by Faba's betrayal, pointing out that he had everything at Aether Foundation that a person could want: an unlimited budget, the power and respect that came from being her second-in-command, and her personal friendship ensuring that he could do as he pleased. It doesn't occur to her that Faba's just a greedy, egomaniacal prick who wants more.
• Goomba Stomp: A Golbat defeats an alpha Beowolf by dropping from the sky onto it and snapping its spine.
• Graceful Loser: Machoke consoles himself after losing to Yang by noting that being beaten by a human will make for a more interesting story to tell than beating a human up.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Weiss uses a gravity glyph to launch a Team Rocket grunt through an open door, where he collides with another grunt.
• Groin Attack: Yang does this to a Team Skull grunt, prompting a Share the Male Pain moment from the watchers, including the Pokémon.
• Gun Stripping: Ruby proves to Lt. Surge that she and Weiss are professionals by taking his gun apart and reassembling it in seconds.
• Had to Be Sharp: It's spelled out to the new team additions in Alola that Team RWBY are so skilled because the Grimm made them need to be, since they don't have Pokémon on Remnant to fight with them like they do on Earth.
• Halloween Episode: It gets one for Halloween 2020 in the form of an apocryphal chapter representing a theoretical point after Team RWBY returns to Remnant. Shade traps Adam in an illusion where, after he kills the team save for Blake herself, she seemingly revives them as zombies through dark magic. He honestly buys into it, fighting against the illusions while the very much alive Team RWBY watches in amusement, tiring himself out until he's easily captured when more students and teachers arrive.
• Hand Blast: After Shade hands her a Shadow Ball, Blake tries to copy it but fails. When she tries to use her Dark-Type Semblance, she instead shoots Dark Pulse from that hand.
• Hard Light:
  • Plans are made to use the Mirage Master's tech to eventually create hard light Grimm for students to train against.
  • Also present in the form of hard light Dust/Dawn stones, which Lillie has a strong aptitude for. It shows in the battle at Aether Paradise, where she tears through a horde of Grimm with a pair of floating disc constructs that act as both shields and buzz saws.
• Harmful to Minors: While the team is storming Aether Foundation, Casey's Pokémon sense something's wrong, and when her Electabuzz sees what's around the corner, he tries to keep his trainer back. Casey ignores him and looks anyway, and lays eyes on her first fatal Grimm casualty.
• Hated by All: Jacques Gelé-Schnee is such a repulsive human being that when he looked like he was about to force Weiss to return to Atlas, even Team CRDL stood up with the crowd, ready to throw hands to keep him away from Weiss.
• Haunted House: Team RWBY take shelter in one to escape a storm, and promptly discover that Ghost Pokémon are a thing.
• Head Pet: Nox the Zubat taking this position on Ruby's head, as did Lux the Torchic did for Yang while he was small enough. Blake is surprised that Yang would allow it, considering how protective she is of her hair. Word of God is that letting this trope continue was a big factor in Nox not growing much when evolving into a Crobat.
  • Similarly, one of the first things Blake's new Litten Mal does is climb onto her head and settle in place.
• Head-Tiltingly Kinky: When Yang catches Whisper reading Blake's Ninjas of Love book, the Kirlia asks Yang if one particular scene is actually possible, causing the girl to have a Luminescent Blush and tilt her head, saying that it might be possible with enough yoga.
• Help Mistaken for Attack: When Ruby asks a Golbat for directions to the nearest town, it responds by grabbing her and flying into the air. Her teammates ready their weapons until Ruby calls down that she can see one, as Golbat was lifting her just above the treeline.
• Here We Go Again!: Weiss' reaction to Team Rocket taking umbrage at her interfering with a heist and declaring her an enemy, clearly reminded of the White Fang's hatred of the Schnees.
• Hero of Another Story: Ash is elsewhere during the events of this story, but several characters make references to him and events that he's been involved in.
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Discussed. Koga explains to Ruby about the whole stagehand thing, and why his real ninja clan adopted it: The first reason is because it both intimidates people who don't know better and gets those who do to underestimate them, and secondly when the samurai guarding a castle fight off a team of Highly-Visible Ninja, nobody notices the cook they hired last month slipping away with the vial of poison he just used to kill their lord. They actually make a year of "Pajama duty" a requirement for rookies.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs:
  • The Mark VII Desert Braviary^*Eagle owned by Lt. Surge is unusual in that it is a Bland-Name Product rather than an expression, but Surge's Gun Porn description leaves no doubt what it's supposed to be.
  • Later, an Oricorio complains about how Nox "[pulled] a Whirlwind out of his cloaca like a comic-book speedster".
• Honest Corporate Executive: Mr. Stone, which saddens Weiss when she realizes that it isn't an act since it means someone can be kind and successful when her own father isn't.
• Human Traffic Jam: When Team RWBY finally get a way to go home, the first thing Ruby sees when she comes out of the wormhole is her father, causing her to stop and making Weiss and Blake bump into her, knocking all of them down.
• I Don't Know Mortal Kombat: Ironically, despite being an experienced general with an excellent grasp of real world strategy and tactics, Ironwood is terrible at chess.
• I Just Want to Be Badass: Casey is starstruck by Team RWBY and is eager to receive training from them.
• I Need a Freaking Drink:
  • Yang's reaction to Team Rocket's standard antics. Ruby protests, saying if she has to remember Yang does too.
  • Apparently trying to understand the Grimm leads to this happening a lot to Remnant scientists.
• Ice Magic Is Water: After being briefed on Pokémon types by Blake, Ruby wonders why Ice and Water aren't the same.
• Ignored Expert: Defied. Mr. Stone's first rule is that if Devon Corp hires experts for consultation, they listen to said experts.
• Implied Death Threat: Yang tells Faba that they're going to be geography once the team gets their hands on them. When said person says the saying is supposed to be history, this is her response:
  Yang: Nope. History gets remembered. You're just going to be part of the landscape.
• Impromptu Tracheotomy: A Beowolf Nox Confuses accidentally stabs a member of its pack in the throat.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Taiyang jokes that Zwei is so strong because he's descended from Umbramail, Lord of All Corgis. Or at least it seemed to be a pun...
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Ruby, Weiss and Yang make these excuses and quickly duck away when Ghira Belladonna mentions talking to the local White Fang branch, leaving Blake to explain to her parents exactly what has happened to their old organization.
• Insistent Terminology: Lusamine and her loyal Aether Foundation employees constantly refer to the Grimm as Ultra Beasts, just like every other docile, misunderstood creature that comes out of an Ultra Wormhole. At least until Salem makes the Grimm drop the act.
• In Spite of a Nail: Faba still made Type: Null to fight the Ultra Beasts even though in the fanfiction they are the Grimm.
• Instant Expert: Played for Drama with Whisper. The young Ralts has, so far, done this with new moves, like learning Psycho Cut to protect the others from Tyrian, so that means that when she doesn't master the beginner sword forms that Weiss starts training her in, it's the first time since her birth that she'd failed to master something almost immediately, and she doesn't understand that taking time to learn difficult things is normal, and Weiss can't convince her otherwise because Whisper thinks that she's lying to spare her feelings.
• Internal Reveal:
  • Team RWBY finds out about Salem after Lusamine mentions meeting them and how she could control Grimm.
  • Blake's parents are informed of what the Vale branch of the White Fang has been up to under Adam's leadership.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When Honest Corporate Executive Mr. Stone comments that "If you put this many Alpha Nerds into a room together without any sort of guidance, you'll either end up with a doomsday device or a game of Druddigons and Dragonites!", one of said Alpha Nerds jokingly protests because they don't have any dice.
  Stone: All the more reason for me to be peering over your shoulder, Simmons!
• I Think You Broke Him: Yang jokes that Weiss is broken after her reaction to seeing a Pokéball in action.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: Ironwood refers to Absol as "it" before Ozpin and Glynda tell him to use "her".
• I Told You So: Yatsuhashi to the rest of Team CFVY after Nora points out that Team JNPR only knows the details about Team RWBY's situation because they asked. Rumors spread by Team CRDL, who happened to be the nearest team to where RWBY went, is why they asked in the first place.
• Jerkass: Say hello to Damien, Pokémon's local distributor of abused Fire-types.
• Joke and Receive: After learning that Poké-balls are matter-to-energy conversion and storage devices, Blake comments that she'd wondered if some Pokémon were just really small. Yang's response fits this trope.
  Yang: What, like a portable goldfish?
  (Nearby kid sends out Goldeen)
  Yang: ...I was kidding.
• Jump Scare: When Blake is introducing Sun to her team, Shade the Haunter does this to him. Sun practically tries leaping into Blake's arms in fright - and he can't believe people actually do that - but she sidesteps him and leaves him to fall on his tail.
• Just a Kid: Lusamine brushes off Gladion telling her about Type: Null because she thinks it was all his imagination.
• Just Take the Poster: Ruby steals a flyer for the Golden Valley Tournament off a store window to show to her team.
• Just Toying with Them: After Oak's Dragonite wipes the floor with Tyrian Callows, Gary's Blastoise gets in on the action by juggling him with water blasts. Alakazam cautions his teammate against this since it might allow him to escape... which a Griffin swooping in promptly does.
• Killer Rabbit: Absol's introduction to Zwei involved the corgi sitting on a huge pile of dead Grimm.
  Absol: Are you... sure you aren't, like, a Corgion or something?
• Knight of Cerebus: The sudden introduction of Tyrian Callows provoked a Mass "Oh, Crap!" from the readers.
• Laser Blade: Gary's Alakazam teaches Whisper Psycho Cut. Unlike most depictions of the move both hold onto the generated blades annd use them for melee attacks.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Glynda thinks that for some students' unruly behavior, defeat and humiliation are the only lessons able to stick. Specifically, for Team CRDL spreading the rumor that Team RWBY died while they were missing for two months, Glynda "randomly" assigns them to spar against Ruby and her new Pokémon team, who quite literally blow them away.
• Last-Second Word Swap: Qrow tones down his question about Glynda, correcting "bit-" to "complained".
• Lemony Narrator: Shade's recounting of the incident where he and Blake were kidnapped by some goons and forced to fight off the Grimm that they also captured is butcher-full of ham. The listeners agree it's more fun this way.
• Let Me Get This Straight...: Taiyang says this word for word when he learns that while he and the rest of the rescue team has been running themselves ragged trying to find a way to Team RWBY for the last two months, the girls have been enjoying themselves in a tropical paradise.
• Let's You and Him Fight: When Yang sees an abusive trainer calling his Pokémon a weakling, she agrees that weaklings are just the worst, and "suggests" that he and the Pokémon duke it out so that the trainer can "prove who the weakling is here". Ruby quickly swoops in and yanks away his belt to force him to face Torchic on his own.
• Life-or-Limb Decision: Solgaleo!Nebby grabs Grendel before it can flee through an Ultra Wormhole, but the Grimm General manages to escape by smashing off its trapped limb.
• Like an Old Married Couple: Shellby and Kimie from this episode of the anime bicker a lot but care deeply about each other. Also, they're old and married.
• Little Miss Badass: Lillie, after unlocking her Semblance, becomes a berserker, Grimm-killing machine, buzzsawing her way through tens of Grimm in order to save her mother.
• Loophole Abuse: This is how Nanu justifies not arresting Lusamine after the attack on Aether Paradise. Since there are no laws on the books regarding the Grimm, she technically didn't do anything illegal in harboring them, and the Aether Foundation was above-board in all other respects.
• Losing Horns: After Tapu Koko throws Yang out of the Ruins of Conflict, an annoyed Kricketune belts the tune out before leaving with his Kricketot orchestra.
• Love Epiphany: Jaune has his when he asks Pyrrha out to the dance and sees how happy she is as she says yes.
• Made of Plasticine: Since the Grimm lack Aura, the weaker ones are highly vulnerable to attacks that wouldn't bother Pokémon or humans with Aura. More than one character kills a Grimm that they're trying to capture for research purposes because they're more fragile than expected.
• Mafia Princess: Marian is the granddaughter of The Goodfeather, the Honchkrow in charge of Alola's largest flock. This comes into play in Chapter 38, wherein Marian is able to 'convince' a Murkrow that recognizes her to help her move the berries his trainer had stolen.
• Magic A Is Magic A:
  • Pokémon moves and abilities all ultimately draw from Aura, which they can add elemental attributes to without needing Dust. While humans and faunus usually have typeless Aura, some Semblances cause the Aura used to take on types.^note It depends on the effect of the Semblance. Blake's shadow clones are Dark-Type, while Darwin has stated that Velvet's ability to mimic fighting styles is typeless. This means that human Aura-users can learn to use moves, whether by TM or by direct teaching.
  • Evolution Stones are the Earth version of Dust, just hyper-concentrated compared to the Remnant version to the point that a used stone is noted by Weiss to be fairly high-quality. A comparison is made to Dust being coal and Stones being diamonds.
• Mathematician's Answer:
  Casey: Yeah… Team Rocket just… does that. Like, all the time.
  Yang: Exploding for no reason, or the threatening poetry?
  Casey: ...Yes.
  • In chapter 31, after Nox and Lux snap Sabra out of her shock over Yang challenging Tapu Koko, they have this exchange:
  Nox: Eh, she'll get used to it eventually.
  Lux: Do you mean us pushing her buttons, or the way crazy stuff just keeps happening around our trainers?
  Nox: Yes.
• May–December Romance: Discussed as one of the reasons Winter finds being shipped with Qrow disturbing, pointing out that he's quite literally old enough to be her father.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Devon Stone can't help but lampshade the fact that man with his last name studies geology as a hobby.
  • Grendel is named after the monster from Beowulf famous for having his arm ripped off.
• Megaton Punch: Yang uses her Semblance to attack Lucario with one during the tournament. He uses the move Detect to dodge, and her momentum carries her into a Ring Out.
• Medieval Stasis: Pokémon on their own do not create technology and simply live in nature like animals do. Humanity's ability to innovate sets them apart and lets them form a mutually beneficial relationship with Pokémon.
• Metaphorgotten: Subverted. Yang says that a target is going to be geography, and when she gets corrected that the saying is "going to be history", she replies that history will be remembered, while her target is going to be made part of the landscape.
• Mid-Season Upgrade: In Chapter 28, the Team RWBY members get to choose a second Pokémon each.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Team RWBY goes off to investigate why Grimm in an area are behaving oddly. They end up stumbling through a wormhole to Earth, which Salem was trying to keep separate from Remnant.
• Mirror Monster: After seeing Blake sneak into the bathroom to cry, Shade cheers her up by briefly making it look like her reflection came to life.
• Mistaken for Brooding: Early on in the story Team RWBY grapples with the fact that they are Trapped in Another World, Weiss in particular on the verge of a panic attack while Ruby remains silent. Yang tries to comfort Ruby only for her to reveal that she's actually excited that they get to be the first to explore this new world.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: After Team Skull sees what the gift from their benefactor (the Psycho Serum R) did to their Pokémon, Guzma tells Team RWBY what they want to know about their plans.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: It's a crossover with RWBY, so it's a given. A few of the characters from the Pokémon world have to take a moment to process the existence of a Scythe/Sniper rifle hybrid (Ruby's weapon Crescent Rose), and then there's Riley's Lucario reaction to Yang's Ember Celica:
  Lucario: She can shoot incendiary micro-missiles from her Aura-reinforced shotgun fists.
  • Weiss is the only member of RWBY whose weapon (Myrtenaster, a rapier that can utilize Dust via a revolver-style chamber near the hilt) is close to normal, as Blake's can transform from a sword (with an equally sharp sheath) to a pistol.
• Mood Whiplash: Chapter 43 has a series of action segments from each of RWBY's second Pokémon as they fight off Grimm. When it looks like Casey is about to get her own she stumbles on a corpse and the mood turns somber.
• Mook Horror Show: Chapter 42 has Team RWBY raid Team Skull's base after Team Skull steals Nebby. The chapter is mostly from Team Skull's point of view and has them be utterly demolished by the huntresses in training.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • Team Rocket thugs have broken into a Pokémon nursery to steal the eggs, but their Drowzee misses the young girl currently on watch duty. That was their first mistake. Their second was assuming a rich-looking girl with no Pokémon of her own would be easy to cow into submission. Weiss Schnee draws her sword and disabuses them of that notion rapidly (which is very similar to how Ruby got into Beacon two years early in the first place).
  • They do this again in a later chapter when Cassidy and Butch, a couple of higher-level agents, threaten all of RWBY. Butch starts to monologue about how his new Pokéball can steal pokémon from their trainers—and Ruby simply shoots it out of his hand. Then they pull out a pair of high-level Pokémon, who themselves assume it's going to be a simple matter to intimidate the girls. Yang proceeds to gleefully wipe the floor with them.
  • When in Alola, Yang is startled by a "statue" that turns out to be Tapu Koko. Annoyed, she picks a fight with him, even after learning Tapu Koko's identity, since she wants to see if a Legendary is really that powerful. It ends predictably.
  • Faba tries to threaten Watts with his Raichu only to end up with a gun to his head when Watts' quick reflexes allow him to hold Faba hostage.
  • Gladion is hired by Team Skull to go after Team RWBY. The members he challenges find this hilarious, and Blake quickly slips behind him and draws her sword to prove just how out of his depth he is.
• Mundane Utility:
  • While making arrangements to go to Alola, Weiss worries that the vast distances could be a problem if something happened while traveling. Professor Oak quickly reminds her about Teleport.
  • Mal is used as an extra griddle to cook some bacon while he naps.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Wicke is absolutely not convinced that the Grimm are safe and is only sticking around because she trusts Lusamine enough to ignore her fear.
• My Skull Runneth Over: A temporary version. A Human (or presumably a Faunus) with an unlocked Aura can use a Technical Machine to learn a move in the same way as a Pokémon, but their minds cannot handle the massive surge of information at once. When a TM reader is applied, the applicant has a seizure until the reader finishes running, muttering the Techno Babble of the move, and afterwards they are left with an hours-long migraine, unlike Pokémon who just go into a short-lived daze. Slowing down the speed of the reader lessens the pain, though it also drags it out.
• Mythology Gag:
  • When Yang picks up and hugs her new Jangmo-o, the young Dragon-Type complains about unauthorized snuggles.
  • Ruby babbles about "Team RWBY, Explorers of Time and Space"
  • While in Alola, Team RWBY lives in the player character's house.
  • Absol reads the Howling series, which Zwei wrote in Chibi. Ren references how Blake suddenly lost interest in the series.
  • As payment for bringing him Nebby, Faba rewards Team Skull by giving them a Pokémon boosting drug called R that came from Ryme City.
  • According to Word of God, Lillie's Semblance is Beast Boost, which is the Ability the Ultra Beasts have, giving a boost to the user's highest stat with every foe defeated.

N-S

• Named by the Adaptation:
  • Lt. Surge's Raichu is nicknamed Sarge.
  • Plumeria's Salazzle is named Aisha as a Shout-Out to Y'all Are Stupid.
• Never Heard That One Before: Tracey Sketchit has heard all the jokes regarding his name at least once. Yang takes this as a challenge.
• Never Trust a Title: No Boldore appear or are mentioned until Olivia's makes a brief cameo 32 chapters in, and shotguns aren't a major feature either. Behind the scenes, the author was trying to come up with a title, and asked a friend for advice. The friend's instant and deadpan response (a play on the film Bedknobs and Broomsticks) was hilarious enough that the author went with it.
• New Baby Episode: Chapter 13 focuses on Whisper hatching from her egg to comfort Weiss, being awestruck at Weiss' skill, and subsequently getting adopted as her sister.
• Nice Kitty...: Sun's reaction when he climbs up a tree to see Blake, only to step on Mal the Torracat's tail.
• Nightmare Fetishist:
  • During the team's first fight with Tyrian, Blake's Gastly hits him with the horror-inducing Nightshade. Tyrian laughs and not only shrugs off the attack but says he enjoyed it. Gastly eventually finds a trigger that works.
    Gastly: Okay, so he's that kind of crazy. This just became a lot harder.
  • Lusamine, who sees the Grimm similarly to her view of canon Ultra Beasts. She has gained an outright loathing of Team RWBY for their 'murder' of them.
• Nightmare Retardant: In-Universe; the Apathy are one of the creepiest Grimm around, and were responsible for a major Nightmare Fuel episode in RWBY canon... but here, a horde of them runs into a group of Yawn-using Slowpoke. Their "battle" consists of the two groups just moaning at each other, with the Apathy's will-leeching screams failing to do a thing to the slow-minded Slowpoke, and then the Yawns put them to sleep. Karen dubs it "the most epic laziness battle the world has ever seen".
• No Mouth: Blake is briefly distracted while drinking with Tapu Bulu to wonder how he drinks anything without a visible mouth.
• No Need for Names: Ruby's Zubat didn't see why he would need a name, but he took the nickname Nox because it was important to his trainer. Later chapters expand this to be a trait of all Pokémon.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Ruby and Yang are talking about various funny incidents from their past to cheer up the others when Yang mentions 'the Bean Incident.'
    Ruby: NOBODY PROVED ANYTHING! IT WASN'T MY FAULT! I SWEAR I DIDN'T KNOW THE CAMEL WAS LOADED!
  • Will's Xatu recalls a few moments of his trainer's Alcohol-Induced Idiocy on Alola.
  • Something happened that involved Casey's Raticate and Pokédex, as well as a key lime pie.
  • Blake once accidentally turned a set of reviews on the seafood places in Vale in instead of a history report.
  • The Vytal Festival Dance is pushed back twice due to two of these, one involving a student somehow mistaking the main hall for the Bullhead landing pads, and then a later one involving a coffee maker and a firehose, with said coffee maker apparently being an espresso machine that, according to Ironwood, "can fill a fifty-five gallon drum in three minutes". There was a third delay, but that one was more due to a lack of situational awareness from Cardin Winchester when he decided to insult Coco Adel.
  • While Ruby and her Pokémon were fighting the Totem Toucannon and his Oricorio, one of the Oricorio used Feather Dance on Ruby which reminded her of an incident involving Zwei and a chicken coop.
  • When Hala started teaching Ruby and Casey how to use Z-moves, he tells them to make sure their Z-crystals aren't in their Z-rings so as to not accidentally trigger the Z-move. They rightly figure there's a story behind that, and Hala says it's one he's far too sober to tell right now.
  • Yang once picked a fight with a Pyukumuku, only to regret it after the Sea Cucumber Pokémon punched her, quickly followed by horror once she learned what it punched her with^note its guts.
  • Weiss apparently earned her Psychium-Z via a hula dance-off with an Oricorio.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup:
  • Faba is unable to recreate Silvally after Gladion freed him because he doesn't have enough of the genetic material.
  • Averted with the portal machine. Faba wipes his computer clean before fleeing, and claims it will take years for the Aether Foundation to recreate his work, only for the very next scene to reveal that there were back-up servers located off-site, and it will take about an hour to retrieve everything he wiped. The IT technician telling Wicke this even lampshades how arrogant and ignorant Faba must have been not to realise this.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond:
  • On Remnant, Yang, despite her Semblance and skills, is still just a first-year Beacon student, but on Earth, her skill is Aura is greater than that of any human Aura-user Riley, a skilled Aura Guardian himself, has ever seen before.
  • Similarly, Ozpin considers Absol to be a match for veteran huntsmen, despite her not using any exceptionally powerful moves because of her skill in aura manipulation.
• No-Sell:
  • A swarm of Apathy Grimm try to use their depression-inducing powers on the denizens of the Slowpoke Well, only for the slow-witted Pokémon to not even notice the effects. Conversely, the Apathies are not immune to the Slowpoke's sleep-inducing Yawns.
  • Sabra the Jangmo-o's Bulletproof ability, allowing her to shrug off everything from machine pistols to sniper rifles to Gatling guns.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Salem spins a lie to Lusamine about how the poor, innocent Grimm are senselessly murdered en masse by Huntsmen and that if you just show them kindness they'll be kind to you, while keeping the Grimm around her docile to sell the act. Lusamine, being the kind, caring person she is, falls for it hook, line, and sinker and effectively becomes a Zombie Advocate.
  • Funnily enough, as a result this begins to apply to Lusamine. In the eyes of everyone with even a little experience of the Grimm when they aren't being directly puppeted by Salem, working to "protect them" is so utterly stupid that Lusamine ends up looking like either The Quisling or a Psycho Supporter. Her own children believe that she's gone completely crazy, and seek to become strong enough to bring her back to her senses. Gladion, in particular, believes that she must have been complicit in the Pokémon experimentation that went into creating Type:Null. In reality, Lusamine is heartbroken about her children running away from home- especially after Gladion made such wild claims against one of her top scientists. It's not until Faba outright boasts about being the mastermind behind the Grimm outbreak on Aether Paradise and Lusamine arrives to try and stop him that team RWBY and their allies can confirm that she's not behind it.
• Not Hyperbole: Tyrian says as much when Gary's Alakazam promises to Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon, and then extends the Psycho Cut blades from his spoons to do it with.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Tupp, Zipp, and Rapp seem to be generic Team Skull grunts in their first appearance, with Yang laying a comically mismatched beatdown on them. In a later chapter, they use a Garbodor's Poison Gas attack to disorient the group long enough to kidnap Nebby.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: One is necessary when Mr. Stone tells Team RWBY about the Mirage Pokémon Incident.
• Now, Let Me Carry You: Just as Grendel breaks through Lillie's Dust shield and is about to rend her and her mother limb from limb, Nebby chooses that moment to evolve into Solgaleo, before saying the following:
  Nebby: LILLIE, YOU'VE WATCHED OVER ME FOR SO LONG… LET ME PROTECT YOU NOW.
• Obviously Evil: Just about everyone who sees the Grimm can tell right away that they're pure evil. The only reason that Salem has managed to dupe Lusamine is the lucky fact that the first Grimm the Aether Foundation encountered was wounded, making the woman think that its behavior was because someone hurt it. The fact that Salem has kept any subsequent Grimm on their best behavior while feeding Lusamine a false narrative hasn't hurt either.
• Offhand Backhand: Ruby casually decapitates a Beowulf that tried to blindside her while she was interrogating a supposed Team Rocket grunt.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Zwei single-handedly kills a literal pile of Grimm. Absol wonders if he's some kind of Pokémon.
• Oh, My Gods!: On several occasions, humans and Pokémon swear by relevant Legendaries, such as a Lucario saying "Cobalion as my witness", Professor Oak saying "Mew help us", or a Gastly having a "Giratina-may-care grin". In general, Mew and Arceus are used in place of "God" in real-world expressions, while Giratina and the Distortion World fill in for Satan and Hell.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted with Professor Oak. While he does dabble in several other fields, it is, by his own admission, dabbling based on interest rather than training, and his focuses are the sociology of Pokémon and humans and how they affect each other, and biology. He knows enough about Evolution Stones to form a hypothesis about the connection between them and Dust from what he learns about the latter from Weiss, but he has no idea what the geological and elemental forces that make them being present on both worlds but resulting in a diffuse and widespread substance on one, and a compressed and compact one on another implies, for example.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Weiss and Ruby are shocked to hear the cold way the normally meek Lillie talks about Lusamine, comparing it to Pyrrha cursing somebody out.
  • In a flashback, Lillie is concerned by how the normally level-headed Wicke is on edge discussing the newest arrivals at Aether Paradise (Grimm).
  • A subversion: When Kali asks if Blake is still bad at hiding her spicy literature, Ruby feigns shock and claims that Blake hates spicy literature. Kali barely has time to look horrified at her daughter's attitude change before Ruby can't hold in her laughter any more, after which she is relieved that Blake is still the same as she remembers.
• Opaque Nerd Glasses: Professor Cypress sports a pair of glasses that hide his eyes which add to his eccentric air.
• Open Secret: Nora states that they all pretend like they don't know about Blake's bookshelf of erotic literature.
• Operation: [Blank]:
  • Yang dubs her "plan" to win the Golden Fist Tournament "Operation: Hit Them 'Til I Win".
  • Ruby calls the plan to reunite Blake with her parents "Operation Stray Cat Strut" even though Weiss thinks the name is stupid.
• Outside-Context Problem:
  • The Grimm. They're not absurdly powerful, even compared to common Pokémon, but their bloodlust catches everyone off guard. Several trainers almost get killed because they don't expect to get attacked during a battle. Additionally, Salem is able to mislead Lusamine into believing that the Grimm are innocent victims of mankind's aggression, since the idea of a truly malevolent race of beings who want to Kill All Humans because they can is completely unheard of within the Pokémon world, whereas Pokémon populations being decimated by overhunting or driven away due to unsavory stereotypes very much isn't.
  • Pokémon function as this for the Hunters. Tyrian notes that he has no way of actually judging their power or strength like he would another Remnant-trained fighter and their diversity makes them unpredictable. This costs him massively when Professor Oak shows up with his Dragonite whose sheer power he massively underestimates.
• Painting the Medium: In the main story and side story, gods and legendary Pokémon speak in text in their color.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: It's noted that besides her bow, Blake didn't really do much to disguise herself, even enlisting under her own name. While "Belladonna" as a last name isn't that uncommon, especially for Faunus (there's a few key players with that name who were parts of the Faunus Rights Revolution), with Yang and Ruby even being worried that they might have to try a few times to find the right Belladonna family when they go to Menagerie, when Weiss meets Ghira and learns of his and Blake's relation she realizes how obvious the connection is. When Blake's teammates are teasing her about the lack of effort she made disguising herself, Blake counters that it worked.
• Pass the Popcorn:
  • When Tapu Koko is about to fight Yang for the first time, Weiss wonders if he'd be willing to wait to let the others get some popcorn.
  • Tracey's sketch of Gary's (failed) attempt to hit on Yang has the rest of RWBY in the background eating popcorn.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Lillie comments that Faba always uses the same set of passwords and never changes them, making it easy for her to sneak into his lab.
• Person as Verb: After a Gilligan Cut in chapter 20, Ruby admits that she, "pulled a Yang," by Tempting Fate about how difficult taking down the Geist would be.
• Pinned to the Wall: A Team Skull grunt who tries to keep Team RWBY out of Po Town is incapacitated by Ruby's Razor Leaf/Leafage.
• Playing Possum: Some of the Grimm captured by Devon Corp to study do this to trick the scientists into letting them out. Luckily RWBY are wise to their tricks, and they chalk it up to the Grimm Elders captured along with them.
• Playing the Victim Card: Salem manipulates Lusamine by claiming that the people of Remnant are attacking the Grimm solely out of misguided fear, so the Grimm are merely reacting to their hostility. Salem's ability to keep the Grimm at the Aether Paradise on their best behavior makes this lie more convincing.
• Pokémon Speak: The Earth in this story is mostly based on the one from the anime, so this is a given. Nox's introduction is the first hint team RWBY gets of how weird Pokémon can be.
  "Team RWBY stared. All of them, in their own ways, were processing that the crazy animal thing before them had just said what was clearly a word, not an animal noise, even if the word was nonsense."
• Poor Communication Kills: When Lusamine ignores Gladion's story about Type: Null, her response makes him think she knows about it, giving him the resolve to run away with the Pokémon.
• Porn Stash: According to Yang and Ruby, Blake has a secret shelf of her saucy magazines behind the regular books, but somehow thinks that the rest of RWBY does not know about it despite them all taking textbooks from the ones in front. Kali and Ghira are amused to hear their daughter is still as much of a Covert Pervert as they remember her.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: After taking Taiyang's advice and asking Pyrrha to the dance, Jaune fumbles his way into his dorm and sits in a daze.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Nebby screams in pain while Faba uses his power to generate wormholes. Lillie is so determined to save him from the torture she sneaks back into the room that gave her her traumatic fear of Grimm.
• Power Misidentification: Raven is spying on Yang's demonstration of some Pokémon moves, and immediately comes to the wrong conclusion about what she saw.
  Raven: "That rat bastard Ozpin made the girl his new Fall Maiden!"
• The Power of Friendship:
  • A literal example. Ruby's Zubat, Nox, realizing he's not strong or fast enough to get his trainer out of danger, triggers his evolution into Golbat... and then keeps evolving all the way into Crobat before his first evolution is even complete. It counts as this trope because, in the games, Golbats can only evolve when they have a maximized Friendship stat^note though to be fair, being the Pokémon of Ruby Rose likely means your friendship stat is gonna get maxed out pretty fast. Though on the downside, the evolution was so fast that Nox is much smaller than Crobat usually are, but he doesn't really mind.
  • Guzma doesn't know if this was in effect when he's staring into his Golisopod's eyes as his partner is berserk from R, but it works and he calms down.
• Powers Do the Fighting:
  • Or partner in this case; when fighting Tyrian, Oak is so confident in Dragonite's protection that he doesn't move a muscle, even to blink when Tyrian swipes at his eye.
  • Team RWBY pulls this too during their Team Power Walk into Po Town. Every mook that gets in their way is effortlessly dispatched without them even breaking stride.
• Pragmatic Villainy: When a Team Skull grunt questions if Guzma will really pay Gladion if kicks Team RWBY's asses, Plumeria butts in after Guzma's confirmation that he would, if just to keep up his rep, to say that trying to rip someone who makes a career out of violence off is a special kind of Too Dumb to Live.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner:
  • When Weiss finds herself alone against a squad of Team Rocket grunts and their Pokémon.
    Weiss: You say that like it makes a difference. As far as I'm concerned, I've just been handed a target rich environment all to myself.
  • When Professor Oak confronts Tyrian (whom the scorpion Faunus just tried to poison), this time with his Dragonite in tow:
    Oak: Round two. And this time, we play by my rules.
• Properly Paranoid: Early on in the story, Yang is hesitant to take shelter from a storm in an abandoned house due to her Phasmophobia, something the rest of the team don't hesitate to tease her for. Being the Pokémon world, the place naturally is full of ghosts.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Pokémon are for the most part, a race of Blood Knights that love nothing more than a good fight. In chapter 21, Lux, tasked with looking after some people and their Pokémon rescued from a Grimm attack, even muses about how odd it is to see a group of Pokémon that don't act like this.
  Lux: He wasn’t impressed by them, none of them were battlers by any stretch of the imagination, chosen by their trainers for being cute and stylishly fluffy... and they liked it that way. The little Fire-type never really understood Pokémon that didn’t enjoy a good scrap.
• Psycho Serum: Faba gives Team Skull a dozen vials of R to help them deal with Team RWBY. Guzma doesn't trust anything from Faba, but Golisopod uses a vial out of desperation to protect him and doses himself and three other Team Skull Pokémon into a mindless frenzy.
• Pummel Duel: The beginning of Yang's fight with Machoke builds into one of these as she proves she can fight on equal terms with a Pokémon.
• Punch Catch: Tapu Koko stops Yang's Semblance-strengthened punch dead in a show of his far-greater power.
• Punch Parry:
  • Grendel effortlessly blocks Yang's punch with its mace hand.
  • Yang and Tapu Koko do this during their first fight. By going limp to throw Yang off-balance, Tapu Koko illustrates his better grasp of tactics.
• Quantity vs. Quality:
  • Discussed in relation to Dust and Evolution Stones. The former is widespread and diffuse, the latter is the same material super-concentrated, meaning that it's both much rarer and much stronger (to the point that a used Stone is still very high-quality Dust). Comparisons to coal and diamonds are made.
  • A Pokémon, even wild and untrained, can easily mow through numerous Grimm of a similar size (such as a wild Golbat effortlessly dropping onto a Beowulf hard enough to break its back), though this is balanced out by the Grimm's sheer numbers and raw savagery.
  • Salem's assessment of Earth and Remnant's pantheons; Earth has over 60 deities (the Legendary Pokémon), whilst the Brothers are more powerful.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": In chapter 11, Ruby has this mental response when she realizes that she's fighting Grendel.
• A Rare Sentence:
  • Weiss isn't used to the weirdness of Earth.
  Weiss: Ruby, what are you doing? You aren't going to just luck into directions to a city from asking a giant bat… and what has my life become that I can say that and mean it?
  • Shade realized having Blake as a trainer was far more than he originally expected.
  Shade: I’d always thought it would be nice to get myself a trainer and see the world, even if I never thought it was likely. But now, I’ve joined up with a literal alien warrior maiden to fight back an interdimensional swarm of monsters, and I cannot believe I just said that.”
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Hala gives one to Yang after she starts treating Tapu Koko's challenges as mere spars without showing any improvement over her reckless Attack! Attack! Attack! strategy, which angers the Legendary enough to start delivering progressively more insulting Curb Stomp Battles. In order to get her to listen to him, he disparages her teachers in regards to her training (which gets Yang riled up since said teacher is her father), outmanoeuvres her in a fight to showcase his Old Master credentials as a Fighting-type expert with an unlocked Aura instead of an old harmless civilian, and finally deconstructs her Unskilled, but Strong fighting style as her settling for mediocrity and having nothing left when her strength proves insufficient. When she is finally listening, he then leads into a Dare to Be Badass speech to help her overcome that weakness, develop new strategies, and gain Tapu Koko's approval again.
  • When Jacques Schnee comes to Beacon with the intention of forcing Weiss back to Atlas, Weiss unleashes one on him where she calls him on what a horrible person he is, even punching his Berserk Button by reminding him he's not a Schnee by birth.
• Recognition Failure:
  • Justified due to Team RWBY being Trapped in Another World, which is lampshaded by Weiss herself: when going to a meeting with a Honest Corporate Executive, the environment triggered a sort of Reflexive Response from Weiss that left her briefly surprised when the receptionist asked her if she was Ruby Rose, as she was used to be recognized immediately in any corporate setting.
  • Downplayed; Belladonna apparently isn't an uncommon surname, and there were a few Belladonnas mentioned in the Faunus Rights Revolution, but the rest of Team RWBY feel rather silly that they didn't link their ex-White Fang teammate Blake with Chief Ghira Belladonna, head of Menagerie and former Head Leader of the White Fang.
• Recursive Fanfiction:
  • Lazy Beacon Days, where another version of Team RWBY comes across and reads a book containing the story, and reacts to both their counterparts' actions and the things revealed about each other. Blake got the book for free from a bookstore run by Anna.
  • Meanwhile in Mantle, an Apocryphal story about a Leavanny, Petilil, Audino, and Elesa's Emolga that end up on Remnant and fall in with Robyn Hill and her Happy Huntresses.
  • You Teach Me and I'll Teach You is another apocryphal story set after communication and travel between Earth and Remnant has been established. It sees Weiss send Whitley on his own journey to let him grow away from Jacques.
  • The Poké Adventures of Zero and RWBY, a crossover with Outsiders.
  • Lizards and Lever Actions, a crossover with Dust in the Wind, a crossover fic between RWBY and Fallout: New Vegas.
• Retcon: Cypress' name used to be spelled Cyprus until a reader pointed out that it is "a country where you go to vacation or launder your blood money". Since the intent was for the scientist to be named after a kind of tree, like all scientists in Pokémon seem to be, the author went back and changed it.
• Reforged Blade: The damaged Ember Celica has its internal mechanisms replaced and gets a new armour plate made from Sabra's old scales that channels Yang's Aura easier than steel.
• Removed from the Picture: Salem has an immaculately kept portrait of her family... except for the hole over Ozma's face.
• Retired Badass: To the surprise of no one who knows anything about Pokémon, Professor Oak is this. Once he gets Dragonite, he completely devastates Tyrian Callows literally without even looking at him.
• Revealing Cover-Up:
  • Blake couldn't see through the illusions that the Ghost-types at the manor were using to scare the rest of Team RWBY with, but her Faunus night-vision meant that they were obvious to her, being basically unusually dark patches of shadow in what to her was an at least moderately bright room.
  • Salem's strategy to keep Earth and Remnant from establishing contact is to throw Grimm through every Ultra Wormhole she finds to discourage investigation. This worked in the past, but in modern times both sides are more curious and better equipped to deal with the hordes.
• Reverse Psychology: Team RWBY's other Pokémon manipulate Yang's Jangmo-o Sabra this way, like saying that she'll never be as strong as Yang (who had challenged Tapu Koko to a fight in the previous chapter), to snap her out of shock at the events of said fight.
• Revolting Rescue: A Hypno uses Hypnosis on Blake and puts her to sleep. Shade is forced to lick her in the ear to wake her up, much to their mutual disgust.
• Right Behind Me: Jaune quickly changes his complaint about Professor Port when he realizes Port is behind him.
• Rock–Paper–Scissors: An utterly exhausted Casey and Lillie play Grass, Rock, Bug to decide which of them uses the shower first. Lillie wins, so Casey has to use it first.
• Rule of Three: The end of Chapter 50 has three attempts by Team CDRL to bully some newcomers (Gary, then Casey, then Lillie), not knowing about their target's Pokémon team. In each case, it ends with one of them being suspended in the air, a second pinned to the floor, a third choked in a hug, and Cardin's head lodged in a pair of jaws as he pleads with their trainer to let them loose.
• Rules Lawyer: Guzma proves himself the obnoxious type when, to get back at RWBY humiliating Team Skull, he challenges Blake to an official Pokémon battle with Kukui refereeing, and then claims victory when Shade floats out of bounds. The Unsportsmanlike Gloating he indulges in afterwards makes it clear that he knows exactly how far to push things, and that he knows he wouldn't stand a chance if they fought on the Huntress's terms.
• Running Gag:
  • Team RWBY being flabbergasted at the things that Pokémon can do.
  • Characters wondering who names stuff like Z-Crystals, Mega Stones, etc.
  • Pokemon characters making references to Ash and his status as a Weirdness Magnet.
• Sarcasm Mode: Weiss, upon learning that Team Rocket holds a grudge because she stopped one of their crimes.
  Weiss: Oh no, I've been singled out as a target by a criminal organization with a pointless and nonsensical grudge against me. That's certainly never happened before.
• Security Cling:
  • When her phobia of ghosts comes up in a haunted house, Yang jumps into Ruby's arms in fright, causing her to collapse under her older sister's weight.
  • Sun tries to do this when Shade Jump Scares him, but Blake sidesteps him and lets him fall on his tail.
• Shared Family Quirks: Winter and Weiss both suffer from Cuteness Proximity around Zwei.
• Share the Male Pain: After Yang gives a Team Skull grunt a Groin Attack, every male present is wincing in pain, even the Pokémon.
• Shipper on Deck: Taiyang, Ren, Nora, and Absol are Arkos (Jaune/Pyrrha) shippers.
• Shock Stick: Casey's weapon is an electrified baseball bat called a High Voltage Enhanced Impactor.
• Shooting Superman: Yang and her partners are paired with Team CVFY in an exhibition match, and Sabra demonstrates her Bulletproof ability by slowly walking towards Coco and ignoring every bullet from Gianduja that hits her, even the explosive ones. Once she gets in striking range, she stops, ignites her Dragon Claws... and then promptly gets walloped by Gianduja's handbag mode.
• Shout-Out: Oh... lots. You can read them here.
• Sibling Rivalry: A sub-plot of the Alola Arc involves Whisper the Ralts struggling with the fact that her big sis Weiss now has a new team member Rein the Piplup to train and manage, meaning she is no longer the center of her big sis's attention. She spends half the arc brattily trying to antagonize Rein into leaving, which The Stoic Piplup doesn't take personally, and coming to terms with the fact that she can't do everything perfectly on the first try and failing to do so won't lose her Weiss's love.
• Side Bet: Fox passes Yatsuhashi some lien when Team CFVY finds out that all they needed to do was ask for information on Team RWBY's situation.
• Simplified Spellcasting: To use a Z-Move, besides needing access to the corresponding Z-Crystal, technically all you have to do is enter a sort of meditative state where trainer and Pokémon are in sync with each other, but that's hard to do in battle, so the dances came about as mnemonics to allow quick access to such a mindset, and the dances themselves are simplified versions of Alolan war dances that anyone could use with a little practice. Besides the Tapus, who break a lot of rules in Hala's words, few trainers manage to get to the point of not needing the dances, though.
• Small Name, Big Ego: A variant in Faba. He is legitimately a genius and also happens to be the second most powerful person at the largest charity in the world and has a nearly unlimited budget. But his ego is so massive that he considers such things far beneath him and considers even having a boss as "bowing and scraping" to them. In his mind, he deserves far more than such "paltry rewards".
• Smoke Out: After planting the Black Queen virus and being spotted by everyone at the Vytal Dance, Cinder escapes with a flashbang and a peppermint-scented smoke bomb that masks her scent and leaves Absol and Zwei gagging.
• Sophisticated as Hell: A Team Skull Grunt mixes some fantasy phrases into his speech.
  Yang: Also, it kinda sounds weird to hear you say 'incurred the wrath' right after 'hizzouse', just saying.
• So Proud of You: When Ruby's Zubat feels guilty for not helping more when the team was being pranked by ghosts, Ruby gives him a pep talk, reminding him of how much he'd helped against the Grimm the day before.
  Ruby: I'm serious! Those Grimm were working together too well, we weren't killing them fast enough, and all of the plans I'd made for fighting [Deathstalkers] since that first time took too much time to set up. I wasn't sure how to turn things around… but you did it for me, all on your own! I don't know how to tell you how proud I was of you, or how glad I was that you were there for us. [...] I know you feel bad about how last night went. You shouldn't, but even if I can’t convince you of that, what you did before more than makes up for it. So cheer up! Who knows what we’ll do tomorrow?
  • Jokingly said by Yang when Weiss makes a bad pun about the Zubat and Torchic Ruby and Yang keep as Head Pets.
    Weiss: I guess it runs in the family. Ruby has bats in her belfry, and Yang's going cuckoo.
    Yang: Weiss! I am such a bad influence on you! I’m so proud!
  • Nicholas Schnee to his granddaughter Weiss, telling her he's incredibly proud of everything she's already done and knows she will only continue to do so.
  • Tapu Koko after Yang proves she's learning to be more than a berserker, and made him work for his win in their final match.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: The recorded battle between Apathy Grimm and Slowpoke, or what Karen dubs "The most epic laziness battle the world has ever seen", has a soundtrack full of epic music, choir, and instrumentation^note Strongly hinted with a hyperlink to be John Williams' Duel of the Fates, over the video of the two sluggish groups moaning at each other.
• Spirited Competitor: It's Pokémon, most of them are this, although it really shows during the tournament. Then Lucario has this thought after Yang swaps ammo.
  Lucario: Asking her to fight me armed was a wonderful idea... and Cobalion as my witness I have no idea if I'm being sarcastic.
• Status Buff: These, debuffs, and Life Drain work by affecting the target's Aura. Since Grimm have none the last two are mostly useless against them, but they have no way to counter the first.
• Straight for the Commander: The bloodthirsty Grimm consider Pokémon Trainers just as valid targets as the Pokémon themselves, something which can take unseasoned trainers off guard.
  • This also applies to Hunters with the same mindset from facing off against the Grimm. Tyrian tries pulling this on Professor Oak, but Dragonite is more than a match for him, and when Watts confronts Faba, he makes it a point to acknowledge that his Raichu might be able to defeat him... but there is no possibility for Faba to survive the encounter.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Nox and Gary independently say the situation with Team RWBY is like either a comic book or a fairy tale.
  Shade: Most fairy tales don't have interdimensional portals, so let's go with the first one.
• Stress Vomit: Casey struggles to hold in her lunch when she sees a corpse from a Grimm attack.
• Stunned Silence: The Absol in Remnant can't help but do this when Zwei gives her a daisy at the Beacon dance.
• Suddenly Shouting: A Team Rocket Grunt attempting to rob Weiss.
  TR Grunt: No, I'm wearing a Team Rocket uniform because we made a wrong turn to a Halloween party OF COURSE I'M ROBBING YOU!
• Suddenly Significant Rule: There actually is a rule allowing humans to enter the Golden Fist Fighting-type Tournament, there being a precedent with martial artists seeking a true challenge. Lucario uses the fact that some of the human fighters used weapons in previous tournaments to get Yang to use her Ember Celica in their match.
• Super Gullible: Salem's opinion of Lusamine is that yes, she is gullible enough to believe that the Grimm are Not Evil, Just Misunderstood.

T-Z

• Tae Kwon Door: At one point during the Grimm attack on the Aether Foundation, Lux slams a door in a Beowolf's face, stunning it long enough for him to finish it off with Fire Punch.
• Take That!: Towards the Qrow/Winter pairing - as the latter points out, being belligerent doesn't mean there's Belligerent Sexual Tension, and Qrow's old enough that his niece is the same age as Winter's sister.
• Team Power Walk: Team RWBY does an utterly unstoppable one as they break into Po Town to save Nebby. One of the onlookers even calls it out as a power walk by name, complete with capitalization and link to the trope page.
• Techno Babble: When Yang and Weiss use TMs on themselves, they both involuntarily start rattling off a stream of what sounds like the scientific theory behind the move they just implanted into their heads.
• Telepathy: Most, but not all, Psychic-types communicate using this, including Whisper and Gary's Alakazam. Which species do or do not have this power does not correlate to which ones can have the Ability in the game. There’s also Fox’s semblance, which Whisper describes as a sort of private network compared to how Pokémon project their own thoughts.
• Teleportation: Whisper, Alakazam, and Will's Xatu have all used the move to get around.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Yang does so several times in rapid succession in Chapter 2, simply because she enjoys the appalled looks her teammates are giving her.
  • When Ruby does it eighteen chapters later, she then apologizes for "pulling a Yang".
  • Yang talks about how it looks like getting to Lusamine will be easier than invading Po Town right before the building locks down and Grimm are released.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Tapu Koko sees nothing wrong with using Guardian of Alola, the signature Z-Move of the Guardian Deities, on an already-paralyzed Yang.
• Think Nothing of It: Team RWBY gets confused when everyone thanks them on the news for saving them from the Grimm, since to them, stopping the Grimm is just a natural thing to do.
• This Is My Human: Team RWBY's starters have shades of this, having explicitly decided they liked the girls and following them as a consequence. Absol also considers Qrow as her sort-of trainer, without input of his own. She makes this official to team RWBY (when they return with their own Pokémon to provide context), who finally let him know.
• Title Drop: Chapter 4 is titled "Gothic Punchbowl", which turns out to be the term the team uses to describe a Golbat when they first see it.
  • Chapter 5, titled "Portable Goldfish," from a joke Yang makes near the end of the chapter.
• Too Clever by Half: Faba is genuinely a genius, but the fact that he knows this means that he's got a huge ego and isn't anywhere near as smart as he thinks that he is. For example, when fleeing from Aether Paradise with Watts he erases the entire organization's servers to remove any trace of his research and slow the organization down with developing a means to create Ultra Wormholes through technological means... only for that to fail because the Foundation has off-site backups that are automatically updated on a regular basis, including of his own private files! When Wicke lampshades how Faba didn't even consider those despite how obvious it was, the IT tech working on it notes that Faba always thought that basic procedure was beneath him, and that he's not sure that Faba knows what IT even does. Salem can also see the fact that he's almost certainly going to betray her once it benefits him most coming a mile away.
• Too Dumb to Live: This is the impression of Ruby, Weiss and their Pokémon when they run into a group of Aether Foundation workers trying to corral some Grimm, and the workers are trying to pacify the Grimm (or Ultra Beasts as they insist on calling them) and transport them somewhere safe. One of them even stands up to the Huntresses for killing them... until the Grimm break through the psychic barriers and maul her.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Team RWBY learns a lot during their time in the world of Pokémon, especially once they find out they can learn to use Pokémon moves with their Aura, both through training and Technical Machines. And that's not counting their new Pokémon partners.
  • While Team RWBY was off in another world, Team JNPR was helping Taiyang track them down, with Yang's father providing some personal training to Jaune. His improvement is demonstrated in Team JNPR's exhibition fight with Weiss and her team; the battle comes down to a 1 vs. 1 between Weiss and Jaune after both of Weiss's Pokémon are thrown out of bounds and Weiss had expended her energy dealing with Pyrrha, and Jaune is able to use his superior Aura reserves and his close-range capabilities to his advantage, to the point that Weiss decides to force a draw with Perish Song rather than lose to a battle of attrition.
• Too Kinky to Torture: Tyrian actually enjoys being hit by Night Shade, which shows the target "a frightening mirage". At least until Shade works out the right vision to show him.
• Touched by Vorlons: Team RWBY unlocks the Aura of both Casey and Lillie, granting them superhuman abilities like their own.
• Tournament Arc: A bit short to be called an arc, but Yang enters a combat tournament to earn some local currency for her team.
• Town Contest Episode: The tournament from the Tournament Arc is the 432nd hosting of a small Fighting-Type competition.
• Training from Hell: The crash course Team RWBY, especially Yang, plans on giving Casey and Lillie, with it being made clear that only Aura's Healing Factor accelerating the process of pushing oneself to the limit and getting stronger upon recovery will allow it to happen safely.
• Tranquil Fury: After finding the dead Aether employee, Team RWBY is outwardly calm, but Casey notices that they fight with more precision and brutality than they did before.
• Trapped in Another World: Team RWBY end up on Poké-Earth after getting chased through an Ultra Wormhole by the Grimm.
  • Later, an Absol ends up on Remnant.
• Trauma Button: Shade's Beowulf illusion gets a much stronger reaction than he expected from Lillie.
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: Much of Chapter 41 is taken up by Lillie and Gladion recounting how they rescued their respective partners and ran away from the Aether Foundation after almost being killed by a summoned Grimm (Lillie) and seeing the results of Faba's attempts to create an anti-Grimm weapon (Gladion).
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Team RWBY didn't think much of the Pokémon at first, moving to defend a Zubat pursued by a Beowulf pack. Zubat quickly shows his chops by giving the lead Beowulf vertigo with Supersonic, and then the colony leader Golbat drops in and breaks the Grimm's back.
  • No one in the Tournament expected Yang to make it past the first round. Cue her doing things like cold-cocking a Machoke.
  • The Team Rocket goons robbing the nursery do this to Weiss.
  • Tracey's Scyther has learned not to do this over the years. After he sees Crescent Rose, he mentally pats himself on the back for remembering what he'd heard and not underestimating her.
  • Tyrian underestimates Oak's Dragonite.
  • Surge doesn't initially think much of Weiss and Ruby, though he starts eating his words once the latter starts showing her firearms knowledge.
  • Cinder and her subordinates think Absol is just a weird dog at first.
  • Both Sabra and later Totem Kommo-o (her mother) doubt humans can be as strong as dragons. Both change their minds after seeing Yang fight.
  • Winter doesn't believe that Weiss' Pokémon are particularly powerful based on their appearances.
  • When Weiss and her team go up against Team JNPR in an exhibition battle, Weiss says that Jaune is hard to underestimate, pinning the rest of his team and especially Pyrrha as bigger threats than him. To her amazement, Jaune, who had been training with Taiyang and Qrow in the two months they were away, surprises her with his improved skill several times and takes advantage of Weiss's focus on his teammates, even getting the fight into a 1v1 where Weiss has to force a draw or lose in a battle of attrition.
  • Sabra and her Bulletproof ability laughs at Coco's minigun. Her Handbag of Hurt on the other hand...
    Sabra: [after being whacked off her feet] Okay, I'll admit it… I deserved that one.
  • Team CDRL can't help but throw their weight around like the bullies they are, harassing a younger teenage boy (Gary), a young teenage girl (Casey) and a preteen girl (Lillie). In every case, they find themselves on the wrong end of their Pokémon team.
• Underground Monkey: Discussed by Nox and Marian, with Nox noting how some variants' names no longer make sense.
• Unreliable Expositor: Mew's explanation of how Arceus' meeting with the Brothers went is... about as accurate as you would expect exposition on a tense political discussion from The Ditz to be.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Watts and Faba flee through an Ultra Wormhole into the world of Remnant rather than risk Solgaleo's wrath. One turns back to shout a "This isn't over-!" but his partner yanks him through before any more cliches can come.
• Villainous Breakdown: When Cinder tells Salem about the new arrivals from Earth, the call suddenly gets dropped after she mentions Nebby the Solgaleo being there. Ten seconds later, Hazel calls her in a panic as Salem apparently is having a massive tantrum.
• Villain Respect:
  • Salem, while still admitting that Lusamine is fairly gullible to believe that the Grimm are Not Evil, Just Misunderstood due to her manipulations, lacking any deceptive bones in her body, seems to have a good deal of respect for her and her accomplishments, and is quick to admonish Watts for mistaking Lusamine's gullibility for stupidity.
  • Watts' inner monologue as Lillie tears into the Grimm surrounding her mother is actually rather complimentary, comparing her to a tiny but enthusiastic buzzsaw. Of course, he shows his approval of her skills by taking her seriously and going immediately for a headshot.
• Virtual Soundtrack: The transitions to scenes occasionaly link to appropriate music, like this while Yang battles Plumeria.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Weiss and Ruby occasionally show signs of this, as per canon.
  • It's also demonstrated between Lux and Shade, Yang's Torchic/Combusken and Blake's Gastly/Haunter respectively.
    Lux: But if Shade doesn't put that bucket down, I swear I’ll find a way to cram it up him.
    Shade: ...Totally worth it.
    *splash*
• Weird Moon: Inverted. Team RWBY is stunned to see an intact moon in the sky instead of a shattered one.
• "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Sabra's mother is the Totem Kommo-o, and having to grow up to that is largely responsible for her Inferiority Superiority Complex, especially since her mother is the type to show Tough Love by means of constant disparagement.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: In-Universe, both Lillie and Nox have openly wondered who names things like the different kinds of Z-Crystals.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
  • Blake does not react favorably to dog Pokémon.
  • Yang doesn't like ghosts.
  • Lux the Torchic, being a Fire-type, doesn't like the ocean, which Shade calls cliche.
  • When Weiss demonstrates the Z-move Hydro Vortex, which pulls the target into a pocket dimension of water, the hydrophobic Neptune Vasilas, who was spectating, goes into a Troubled Fetal Position under his desk.
• Why Isn't It Attacking?: In Team RWBY's first encounter with Grendel, this is their first clue that he's more than just a typical Alpha Beowulf.
• Willfully Weak: During the tournament, Lucario accuses Yang of holding back her true skill. She explains that she isn't holding back at all, but she normally fights armed and knew that wouldn't be permitted. Lucario, desiring a challenge, invokes a loophole to get her permission to use her weapons in their match. He was not expecting shotgun gauntlets.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: Downplayed. Used Evolution Stones are seen as having no further use on Earth, primarily being kept as mementos. When Weiss sees one, she identifies it as relatively high-quality Dust.
• Would Hurt a Child: When Lillie comes to rescue her mother, Watts shoots her in the head - though she shrugs it off thanks to her Aura. The real threat comes when Grendel gets involved, leading Lusamine to throw herself over Lillie and buy her daughter one more second for her friends to arrive.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Done accidentally. Lusamine dismissed the agression of the first Grimm she saw because it was injured and she thought it was traumatized. When Salem found out she immediately reinforced this belief.
• Wowing Cthulhu: Tapu Koko is amazed at how Yang pushed him harder than any non-Legendary Pokémon had for a long time, capped off by using a Z-move herself rather than through a Pokémon. Especially since he had grown insulted at her lack of improvement in her previous spars.
• Wrecked Weapon: During his last battle with Yang, Tapu Koko detonates all the ammunition in one half of Ember Celica, rendering it inoperable.
• Wrong Context Magic: While Magic A Is Magic A is in effect to tie both Semblances and Moves to Aura, Weiss is confused after seeing Pokémon use elemental attacks without Dust, something thought impossible for humans. It turns out that humans can be taught to use them too by causing their normally Typeless Aura to gain a Type similar to how various Semblances convert the Aura used to have a Type.
• Xanatos Gambit: Guzma views sending Gladion to fight Team RWBY as this. Win or lose, the results will be hilarious, and if he proves actually able to back up his boasts, he might be worth calling upon in the future when a situation calls for the big guns.
• You Can't Fight Fate: When the team is selecting random Pokéballs to choose their second Pokémon, Kukui mentions that Olivia said something about "Fate making sure the right matches were made". Blake, after noticing that the Pokémon Ruby and Weiss ended up with (Rowlet and Piplup respectively) were suspiciously fitting for them, tries a fake-out by switching which Pokéball she grabs at the last second, only to end up with a Litten.
• You Didn't Ask: Team CFVY gets mad at Team JNPR for not telling them anything about what happened with Team RWBY, only for Nora to defuse them by pointing out that they didn't ask, something Yatsuhashi had apparently suggested.
• Yowies and Bunyips and Drop Bears, Oh My: When asked if Menagerie has any legendary Grimm, Blake says that travelers sometimes come back into town raving about Grimm called "Bunyips" and "Drop Ursas".
  Ruby: What are they like?
  Blake: Depends on how much the storyteller had been drinking.
• Zombie Advocate: Lusamine honestly believes that the Grimm are misunderstood creatures thanks to seeing an injured specimen first and Salem's subsequent manipulations to keep them docile, so she shelters them within Aether Paradise. This extends to an unknown number of Aether Foundation staff, as some believe the same and some just go along because they trust Lusamine. This belief is quickly abandoned after it's revealed that the Grimm are indeed Always Chaotic Evil.

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