Fanfic / Wayward (RWBY)

Wayward was a RWBY Alternate Universe fanfiction by Samuel412 taking place on Earth. Ruby and Yang are people with special abilities known as Aberrants or Post-Human. Aberrants are regard as threats to the public who are hunted down and killed. Ruby and Yang are on the run from the authorities being led by Coronel James Ironwood.

Summary: Wayward places Ruby and Yang on a world much more similar to our own. In this world, those with superhuman Abilities are considered Aberrant, and are relentlessly hunted by shadowy forces. With only each other to rely on, they try to survive in a world that won't leave them alone.

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This fanfiction contains examples of:

• Adaptational Heroism: Raven appears to be a good mother to Yang as well as trying to be one for Ruby. She would die to protect them.
• Alternate Universe: Taking place on Earth, where people with extraordinary abilities are rare and feared. Ruby and Yang are among them and are currently being hunted down.
• An Arm and a Leg: After failing to heed Blake’s warnings, Cinder gets her finger’s blown off.
• An Ice Person / Kill It with Fire: Weiss's ability is to control the flow of the temperature of whatever she points at or touches. If she wants to make something cold, she moves the heat elsewhere and vice versa. She once had to use this ability in a car crash that she and Winter were in to keep their car from igniting by freezing the fuel. Unfortunately, this meant that she had to send the heat to the other car killing the occupant.
• Ax-Crazy: Tyrian obviously. The guy is totally insane sadistic bastard that killed hostages for fun. Takes the drug GRIMM like a cocaine addict.
  • Cinder is also in the same boat. If anything, she is worse. Going so far as to lick the GRIMM substance of the ground.
• Badass Native: Blake is a First Nation, who is good with a gun, and she is a very skilled fighter thanks to her ability that lets her easily counter Yang.
• Badass Normal: Neither Tai or Raven had abilities, but it didn’t stop them from taking up arms to protect Ruby and Yang. Tai showed he was a good marksman. Although she doesn’t take part in the shootout Raven would have gone down guns blazing. She does show strong will after she took a drug that caused her a lot of pain to give her temporary powers. Having been soldiers sure helped.
• Beware the Superman: It seems that every normal person hates and/or fears Abberants. There have been very few who have shown to either be kind or indifferent towards Abberants.
• Big Brother Is Watching: The Justice Act apparently gives the government the right to have surveillance everywhere to keep an eye out for Aberrants. Oh, and they can call in drone strikes on American soil.
• Big Eater: It appears that Ruby’s speed gives her an appetite.
• Big Sister Instinct: Both played straight and inverted. Yang and Ruby will do anything to protect one another.
• Black Site: Talked about in the chapter Would? where the drug GRIMM is being made.
  • Summer, Tai, Raven and Qrow hit the site to gather an insurance policy.
• Blood from Every Orifice: After Raven takes a drug to give her temporary powers, she either bleeds blood or black slime from her eyes, nose and mouth.
• Blood from the Mouth: Black slim seems to be coming from Raven's mouth after she took the drug.
• Boisterous Weakling: Ironwood generally believes that Yang is all bark and no bite and simply killing Ruby (or at least threating to) would be enough to break her. Yang very much proves him wrong when he seriously injures Ruby and threatens to kill her during the raid on the factory, causing Yang to blow up half the building in response to save her sister.
• Bullet Time: Ruby’s speed ability is this to her perceptive. To her she is moving normally while everything else is moving extremely slowly. The only things making any noticeable change being something that was moving at high velocity.
  • Watts notes that her ability is likely more manipulation of time then speed.
• Call-Forward: In chapter fourteen, which is chapter one from a different perceptive, Jaune and Ren discuss have Pyrrha killing Ironwood with a chain. Which she does try to do in chapter thirteen.
• The Cameo: Neo and Roman have an appearance in chapter three. Where they engage in a brief scuffle with Ruby and Yang.
• Children Are Innocent: Raven makes a futile attempt to point this out to the negotiator, but he isn’t listening.
• Code Name: Blake and Weiss's introduction into the story reveals them as the two candidates that have been talked about from the Atlas Initiative and they go by callsigns Intruder and Princess.
• Cold Sniper:
  • Tai seems to go into this mode in order to give Qrow back up against the police.
  • Glynda doesn’t appear to have any qualms that she shot Ironwood.
  • Summer was a pretty efficient sniper.
• Collateral Damage: Something that Ironwood and Ozpin are worried about with Ruby and Yang on the loose and the means they would have to use to get them.
• Cooldown Hug: Yang tries to give one to Ruby after the latter kills dozens of cops. It doesn’t work as Ruby proceeds to kill a few more. Only then does she calm down enough for everything she did to catch up that Ruby vomits and passes out.
• Cop Killer:
  • Neither played as a good or bad thing. Ruby and Yang only kill when necessary. Unfortunately for the cops who have orders to shoot them it becomes necessary.
  • Qrow and Tai lay waste to a police taskforce to protect Ruby and Yang.
• Cop Killer Manhunt: Blake points out all of Detroit will be after Ruby and Yang after the former slaughtered a SWAT team.
• Crime After Crime: Not counting their mere existence, Ruby and Yang break out of police custody and then resort to steal anything they need to survive as they try to escape to the west coast.
• Crocodile Tears: Blake puts up an act to let Watts think he is getting to her.
• Da Chief: Ozpin
• Damsel out of Distress: The story starts with Ruby and Yang being detained in a police precinct. They are not there for long as Ruby breaks free from her restraints. Then breaks Yang free of hers. Then Ruby just causes mayhem all the way to the parking garage for them to escape in a car.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Ruby and Yang’s family gave their lives so they could live. They have been on the run ever since.
• Dead Fic: The story has been deleted.
• Death Faked for You: After letting Ruby and Yang run off, Blake and Weiss decide to report that they had killed them. Likely hopping the drone strike on the building will cover their tracks.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Downplayed. There not friends, yet, but the second time Ruby and Yang beat Blake and Weiss results in the latter letting the former runoff while the latter decides to report their deaths.
• Defiant to the End:
  • Even while detained knowing full well that they could be killed at any moment for being what they are Ruby and Yang pretty much spit in Ironwood’s face.
  • Raven, Tai and Qrow knew they were very likely going to die but if it meant that Ruby and Yang could escape so be it.
• Dehumanization: Aberrants are viewed as dangerous and should be put down on the spot even if they haven’t done any harm. They are viewed as things and its. Petty much not even human by the general public. Even if they are children.
• Determinator: Yang has summarized that Ironwood will chase her and Ruby state to state. He does appear to be hellbent on getting them.
• Didn't Think This Through: Just what was Ironwood thinking when he chose to fire his gun in the precinct at Ruby giving her the means and motivation to escape with Yang.
• Differently Powered Individual: The terms for people like Ruby and Yang are Aberrant or Post-Human.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Some truckers killed a bartender and attempted to rape Blake just because she rejected one of their advances.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength: Part of the problem with Ruby’s Bullet Time is that she doesn’t know how much force to put into her punches. She has killed because of it.
  • Seem she has gotten a hang on it as she is able to smack Weiss and Blake around without killing them.
  • Eventually she decides to hell with it all and gives up on holding back.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The Justice Act gives the government a lot of power to use surveillance and to arrest people without due process. This bares similarities to the Patriot Act.
  • Weiss wondering if her father's (a billionaire businessman and politician) aides would take away his phone before he tweeted something stupid.
• Dream Sequence: At the start of chapter The Beginning of the End is the Beginning, Ruby has a dream about her and her mother being on the run.
• Drinking on Duty: Something Opzin does
• Drunk with Power: Cinder is a junkie who after taking GRIMM could never get the high from anything else she took so she keeps taking it. She also gets a high off of stealing other Post-Human abilities.
• The Empath: Qrow’s ability allowed him to project his negative emotions into those surrounding him to a dangerous effect. And it doesn’t discriminate. He uses it to a devastating effect on a police taskforce.
• Explosive Leash: Blake and Weiss have bombs in them to keep them in line.
• Fantastic Racism: There seems to be a lot of hate and dehumanization towards Aberrants. Yang briefly comes across a radio station that has a religious man saying how Aberrants are not god's will. She quickly changes the channel.
  • One of the police officers during the attack on the family home just happens to be a white supremacist.
• Flashback: There are various moments in the story with flashback scenes. With chapter five being entirely a flashback.
• Flipping the Bird: Ruby gives one to Ironwood during her Bullet Time escape.
  • Glynda unknowingly gives him one when the Humvee he is in drives into an active crime scene. Not that she cares when she finds out that he is in it.
• Final Solution: Through the Justice Act the government has the right to hunt down and kill Aberrants by any means necessary.
• For Science!: Watts will perform any experiment to expand his knowledge of Post-Humans and use it for his own gain.
• Fugitive Arc: The premise of the story is Ruby and Yang being chased down by authorities just for existing.
• Good Stepmother: Raven did her best to be one for Ruby in Summer absences. In her last moments with Ruby, she told her she loved her just as much as Yang and going as far as reassuring her that Summer would be proud of her daughter.
• Government Agency of Fiction: The Atlas Initiative is a secretive agency that captures and studies Post-Humans or eliminates them.
• Grand Theft Me: Melanie can jump into other people and take control of them. She takes over a squad leader and guns down his own men. She then gives a gun to Miltia who then shoots the man leaving Melanie unharmed.
• Gun Stripping: A Downplayed Trope. Ruby as gotten really good at using her ability to eject magazines from guns and removing the chambered bullet before the enemy even knows what is going on.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • When a merc witness Ironwood get back up after he got shot in the head. Ironwood kills him on the spot before he can finish what he is saying over the radio.
  • Glynda is killed because she was figuring out what Atlas was doing.
    • This is also why the authorities cracked down on the Branwen home to kill Qrow, Raven and Tai in part due to them knowing so much about Atlas operations.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Qrow, Tai and Raven fight like hell to protect Ruby and Yang from the police.
  • Qrow goes out into open and lets his ability run lose to disorganizer the police taskforce and takes out a lot of them, but he takes a number of hits and presumably bleeds to death afterwords.
  • Tai covers Qrow until the police are all down in order to give Raven time to teleport Ruby and Yang away, he then goes down to be with Raven before the missile hit.
  • Raven goes through absolute agony after taking a drug that gives her temporary powers so she can teleport Ruby and Yang out of the house before collapsing. She presumably dies with Tai once a missile hits the house.
• Hide Your Otherness: This is a necessity for Post-Humans who've yet to be discovered. If anyone sees them use their abilities or any evidence of them having one is around, they can expect a SWAT team to come after them or a drone strike.
• Hidden Wire: Glynda has a keen eye and is able to spot something off about one of Ozpin’s photos in his office. She finds that it has been bugged and she and Ozpin leave to continue their conversation over coffee.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: By trying to shoot her, Ironwood gave Ruby the means to escape her chains with the bullet he fired.
• Human Traffickers: One of Junior’s operations is to help Aberrants move around.
• Hypocrite: Ironwood viewing Ruby and Yang as dangerous Aberrants when he is one as well.
• "I Can't Look!" Gesture: Yang looks away when Junior executes on of his own men for betraying them.
• I Did What I Had to Do:
  • Ruby and Yang don’t want to kill but are not being given a choice when it is a matter of life and death for them.
  • Weiss ended up killing someone to save herself and Winter from a fuel leak after a car crash. She feels rather guilty about it.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The chapters take their names from songs.
• Insane Troll Logic: Ironwood doesn’t think Ruby can be controlled but Yang can through fear believing her bravado is just an act. His solution? Try to kill Ruby in front of Yang. Yeah. That didn’t work out.
• Instant Sedation: Seems Ironwood trust Weiss and Blake as far as he can throw them. He has them shot with tranquilizers after the operation to capture Yang and Ruby fails and they go down in seconds. Weiss tried to protest but it didn’t get her anywhere.
  • His lack of trust isn’t entirely unfounded as they had discussed in private to escape if given the chance.
• Insistent Terminology: Blake doesn’t like being called Aberrant; Post-Human is fine.
• Internal Reveal: Qrow is confused by why the negotiator says there are three dangerous Aberrants when there is just him and Yang, then Raven reveals that Ruby is one as well.
• In the Back: Three mercs decide to go against orders and attempt to kill Blake and Weiss, because they appear not to want them to become soldiers, by sneaking up on them from behind and shooting them. Blakes ability lets her see this and turns around and shoots them instead.
• Invisibility: Possibly what Ren’s ability is but there might be more to it.
• Irony: The kid at the gas station willing to help Yang and Ruby out stating it dangerous outside when there are Aberrants running around. Poor kid didn’t know what was about to happen.
• It's Personal: Taking down Cinder is a vendetta for Pyrrha as the former killed the latter's close friend, Amber.
• I Want Them Alive!: Ironwood wants to capture Yang alive to make her a candidate for the Atlas Initiative. Ruby on the other hand he wants dead.
• I Will Only Slow You Down: Yang insist that if they ever get into a situation where there is no hope of escape that Ruby uses her ability and leave her behind.
• Jerkass: Part of Ironwood’s Knight Templar persona is making him very aggressive to everyone in his pursuit of Ruby and Yang.
• The Juggernaut: If Yang gains momentum, she is unstoppable. She can break through walls, throw powerful punches, tear through trees and if she keeps running, she can go fast. Not as fast as her sister but fast none the less.
• Jurisdiction Friction: In Ruby’s words the Detroit police and ICE are having a ‘dick measuring contest’ on who has the better armament. The police have more armor while ICE has more firepower.
• Kill on Sight: Ironwood’s orders on Ruby at the least, and what seems to be a general rule to do to Aberrants.
  • In chapter five the police were planning to do this to Qrow the second he stepped outside.
• Knight Templar: The Coronel’s believe that Aberrants are a public threat makes Ironwood very gung-ho in his actions against Ruby and Yang.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: At the end of their second fight Blake knows they are beat and tell Weiss to stop fighting.
• Lack of Empathy: Enforced by Ren. His ability is to make it so people don’t care about a general area or certain people to the point that his targets could be considered invisible.
• La Résistance: There appears to be some kind of group that Ozpin is assisting. The question is who are they and what are their goals.
• Last Stand: Tai and Qrow make one to give Raven the time she needs to get Ruby and Yang teleported away before all three of them are killed.
• Leave No Survivors:
  • With the SWAT team that came after her and Yang at the Cash Mart, Ruby decides to kill all of them, even one that decided to run away.
  • In Down In A Hole Summer, Tai, Raven and Qrow sneak into a Black Site to gather an insurance policy and kill anyone who sees them so no one will know that they were there.
• Leave No Witnesses: Ironwood instructs that during the mission in Detroit, Blake and Weiss should kill anyone in the perimeter that isn’t Atlas or the targets.
• Lensman Arms Race: Talked about, that the purpose of the drug GRIMM is to make Abilities easy to have. This creating a new arms race in weapons
• Let's You and Him Fight: For some reason Atlas setup Blake and Weiss to fight Cinder. However, they quickly put a stop to it after Blake keeps Cinder from taking GRIMM, by shooting the syringe in her hands, to keep the former form killing the latter.
• Living MacGuffin: Ruby and Yang appear to be accentual to the events of the story. the Atlas Initiative is hunting them ruthlessly. JNPR comments how everything has been about them.
• Made My Self Sad: When Ruby and Yang rob a money laundering front, Ruby begins talking about how their dad taught her to find new ways to use her gift. This leads to her remembering how he, Raven and Qrow died protecting her and Yang. Yang is quick to reassure her it wasn’t her fault.
• Magnetism Manipulation: Like in canon, Pyrrha’s ability is this.
• Mama Bear: Raven puts herself through pure agony by using a drug that gives her temporary powers to send Ruby and Yang away so the authorities can’t get them.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Discussed. When she was arrested and outed as an Aberrant, one of the methods that Weiss asked to kill her would be overdosing to protect her father’s reputation.
• Malicious Slander: After the Branwen home was destroyed the media started to make up stories about the family. Including saying that Raven and Qrow had an incestuous relationship.
• Missing Mom: There has only been the briefest mentions of Summer and that something happened.
  • She makes her first appearance in the flashback chapter Would?.
• The Mole: One of Junior’s men sold the meet up between his other operatives and Ruby and Yang to the authorities resulting in the shit show that happens at the factory.
• Multiple Gunshot Death: Qrow is shot to hell during the shootout in chapter 5. He does take out the police before succumbing to his wounds.
• Murder by Suicide:
  • Averted. At least one cop nearly shoots themselves due to Qrow's ability to make people feel his negative emotions but comes to his senses when Qrow actually tells him he doesn't want to do that. They end up dying anyways when they try to point their gun at Qrow and he shoots the cop in response.
  • Melanie makes some mercs kill themselves through her Grand Theft Me ability.
• Neck Snap: One poor cop gets this done to him by Ruby during her and Yang’s escape.
• New Meat: Weiss seems to be new to ops compared to Blake. She is nervous and prone to being taken by surprise. She easily slips into using Blake's real name instead of her codename Intruder.
• Never Suicide: Discussed. Another method that Weiss asked she would be killed by after she was arrested was if she would be hung in her cell.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Glynda calls Ironwood out that his actions have made sure that Ruby and Yang can only rely on each other. Making things that much harder for them.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Ironwood is practically invincible. They can be knocked around shot at and they just get back up. Add a Healing Factor in the case of a bullet embedding into his head but not penetrating however it leaves an indent in his skull that quickly heals.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: Ruby gives herself one when a SWAT team comes for her and Yang. Remembering how they came for them back in Chicago but mostly remember when they came from them at their home where their family died protecting them and knowing that Yang would die to protect her, leaving her with no one, Ruby decides she has had enough. She sends a clear message that she isn’t holding back anymore. The outcome… not pretty.
  • Reading the report Blake correctly guesses that Ruby was tired of being pushed around.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • Ruby conducts one on a police precinct.
  • Ruby didn’t beat a SWAT team. She slaughtered them.
  • Pyrrha delivers a brutal one to Ironwood.
• Nosy Neighbor: In the flashbacks Raven and Tai’s neighbor Judy seems to be growing increasingly interested in Ruby and Yang. Suggesting that she is becoming suspicious that they are Aberrants.
  • She does eventually report them but gets killed by Qrow for it.
• Once More, with Clarity: The fourteenth chapter is the first chapter told from the prospective of Jaune and Ren with a bit of Pyrrha and Nora sprinkled in.
• The Only One I Trust: Glynda points out that Ironwoods actions have made it so that Ruby and Yang only have each other to rely on. By all account they really do only have each other. Making them more determined to protect one another.
• Papa Wolf: Tai shoots at the police to give Raven time she needs to get Ruby and Yang away.
• Pet the Dog: Weiss is in despair over her life now being ruined and that she is likely going to be killed for being an Aberrant. Glynda gently reassures her that her life as the daughter of a billionaire senator is over, but she does have options.
• Polyamory: There was a polygamous relationship between Tai, Raven and Summer.
• Post-Robbery Trauma: The kid working at the gas station is left quite shaken after Ruby and Yang end up trashing the place and stealing some food.
• Power Incontinence: Ruby can activate her power at will but sometimes slips into it by accident.
• Power Parasite: The ability that Cinder gains from taking GRIMM is to steal the powers of those she kills and she keeps those powers and can use them every time she takes GRIMM.
• Precision F-Strike: The stressful situation of the beginning chapters has everyone swearing left right and center.
• Private Military Contractors: The Justice Act allows the state to call in private military when four or more Abberants on in the field. Ironwood decides to use them as a quick reaction force for the two that are actually working for the Atlas Initiative, once they locate Ruby and Yang, and send in Intruder/Blake and Princess/Weiss to deal with them.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Yang knows she and Ruby are going to have to ditch their escape car as the police are going to be looking for it. Enforced when they have to abandoned it anyways after its trashed after a brief encounter with a cop.
  • Raven, Tai and Qrow are heavily armed. Came in handy when the police came with the intent to kill Qrow and take Ruby and Yang.
  • Raven kept a dangerous drug as in an insurance policy. With the raid on her home, she used it to get temporaty powers to make sure Ruby and Yang escaped.
• Protectorate: Yang feels that she must protect Ruby not only because she is her younger sister but because she promised her mother she would before Raven was killed.
• Psychic Nosebleed: The drug Raven takes affects her brain allowing her to have an ability, but the effects cause her to bleed from the nose.
• Race Lift: A justifiable use of this. Blake's Caucasian appearance from the show is replaced with a brown one to fit with her native status of the story. This allowing her to be from a group of people who have been discriminated against without having to bring in her Faunus trait from canon.
• Rage Breaking Point: Ruby getting seriously hurt for the first time and having Ironwood threating to kill her sets Yang off enough to blowup half of a factory
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Ozpin is this to Ironwood’s Knight Templar tendencies. He sees Ruby and Yang of more valuable alive then dead. He calls out Ironwood’s actions as causing more problems than they are solving.
• Revealing Cover-Up: Ozpin is beginning to suspect that there was more to the raid on the Branwen home then there appears to be.
• Robbing the Mob Bank: Ruby and Yang need money to pay for fake credentials. So, they decided to rob a place that “loans” money to people then put them in debt for thousands.
• The Scapegoat:
  • Officially it was an officer that was killed during Ruby and Yang's escape that fired his weapon at the former, which allowed them to escape. Unofficially it was Ironwood.
  • Ozpin feels like he will be one for Atlas for Ruby’s rampage.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Pietro takes his Hippocratic Oath very seriously. He doesn’t care if his patients are post-human. They are still people, and he will keep them save if he can. Too bad his efforts to keep the Branwen family save were rendered mute because of a Nosy Neighbor.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Adverted. Weiss tried to use this after she was arrested only to quickly realize that her father isn't going to use his power as a billionaire or as a senator to help her out. He would care more about his reputation then her freedom.
• Seers: Blake’s ability appears to give her limited view into the future as well as seeing any outcome to a response. Works well against Yang where she is able to deflect her attacks. Not so much on Ruby who goes to fast for her to make any sort of response to.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • Ironwood thinks the worker at the gas station should be checked for meth to bust him on something despite the real situation being that Ruby and Yang trashed the store.
  • Cinder has her finger’s blown off but she cares more about the GRIMM drug spilt onto the ground.
• Stern Chase: The whole story thus far is Ruby and Yang being pursued by the government force under Ironwood's command.
• Stunned Silence: Yang is understandably horrified at the sight of dozens of cops' bodies on the ground killed by her sister.
• Stress Vomit:
  • Due to the pure agony and effects of the drug she took Raven ends up collapsing after teleporting Ruby and Yang away and starts to vomit.
  • After killing dozens of cops Ruby vomits and passes out.
• Super Serum: During a shootout Raven takes a black liquid drug that gives her temporary powers. Side effects are incredibly painful, she can barely stand, her nose is bleeding as well as her eyes and vomiting. It nearly killed her once before. It doesn’t matter to her, she is likely dead anyways, as long as she can get Ruby and Yang away that is all that matters.
  • The drug is later revealed to be called GRIMM and its government made.
• Sweet Tooth: Ruby has one with her big apatite. Yang however insists she eat something with more protein.
• Tears of Blood: With the drug in her veins Raven has black tears.
• Tears of Joy: While detained, Ruby has a brief breakdown upon hearing that Yang is still alive. She vows that she will find her and break them out.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Ozpin and Ironwood are in agreement that Ruby and Yang are dangerous but clash over how to deal with them.
• Teleportation: Neo has this ability as she uses it in a fight with Ruby and Yang.
  • Raven gains this ability temporary and uses it to transport Ruby and Yang out of the house.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: After a police task force is wiped out by Qrow and Tai the authorities opt to take out the family home with a hellfire missile with Tai and Raven still in it.
  • The governments are willing to take it even further and turn entire cities into warzones on their own soil just to root out Post-Humans.
• Throw 'Em to the Wolves: Based on Yang’s comments on how Weiss Schnee is supposed to be on leave from public appearances for various reasons, rather than deal with a scandal of his daughter being an Aberrrant, Jacques just let the government have Weiss.
• Time for Plan B: Realizing that Ruby is going to be killed if she is taken to the facility Jaune and Ren start to try to figure out a plan to get Ruby and Yang out of custody. They end up dropping any attempt when Ruby breaks herself and Yang out.
• Torches and Pitchforks: One of the circumstances in Ottawa was that those not boarded up in their homes where out in the streets looking for anyone, they even suspect of being Post-Human so they could lynch them.
• Tragic Keepsake: Yang’s boots were Raven’s. Raven gave them to her as there was no time to get any other footwear before Yang and Ruby could escape the raid on their home.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Blake’s powers awoke after seeing a bartender get shot in front of her and nearly raped by the perpetrators.
• Together in Death: Presumably Tai and Raven. The two are together as the brace for a missile strike on the house.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Seriously Ironwood. Trying to have a smoke at a gas station. Especially when gas is leaking. Be grateful that Glynda stamped out that cigarette before you could even light it.
    • Although his ability seems to make him impervious to harm but still.
  • The mercs who decided to shoot down Blake and Weiss. The mission briefing likely stated what their powers were, and they should have known that Blake would have seen it coming but they tried anyways.
    • The one that survived starts to throw out insults only to earn a bullet to the head for it.
• Troll: Ruby seems to be one as she stole Ozpin’s flask from his desk during her escape. What appears to be just for the hell of it.
• Uncertain Doom:
  • Raven and Tai’s fate is left unclear as they were in the basement of their house when it is hit with the missile and the house collapses on them. Qrow less so as he is not seen dying but he was hit with a lot of bullets.
    • It is later revealed that both Tai and Qrow died on scene and Raven was later killed by a trigger-happy Ironwood while on an operating table.
  • Ironwood getting hit by a Hellfire missile could have very well killed him but given his ability he could have just as well of survived.
• Unperson: Any information on Summer seems to have been wiped clean from records.
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Aberrants are considered unhuman so it's okay to deny them any rights and kill them.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Downplayed. During their last stand Tai and Qrow call each other assholes.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Although the actions of Ironwood and all those involved are extreme, they generally believe that Yang and Ruby are threats to public safety.
• What Have I Done:
  • Ruby has a minor one when she realizes that she could have disarmed the cop who she killed that led to their initial capture.
    • However, she goes into a major one when Yang wants her to talk about what has happened. Ruby starts to ramble on how she seriously hurt and killed people at the police station. She gets so worked up that she ends up inadvertently activating her ability and Yang sees her rapidly changing position and then blinking all over the room. Her speech being broken up in the process.
  • Weiss feels guilt over having to kill another person to save herself and Winter after a car crash where she froze the fuel from their car but had to put the heat to the other vehicle.
  • Blake has a moment of this thinking that her gamble of sending Ruby and Yang to Junior has either gotten Ruby seriously hurt or killed during the raid on the factory.
• Whole Episode Flashback:
  • Chapter five goes back to what happened to Ruby and Yang’s family. They gave their lives so that Ruby and Yang wouldn’t be captured, and they have been on the run ever since.
  • The chapter Would? Is also a flashback chapter. Detailing Summer, Tai, Raven and Qrow on a mission where they descover the drug called GRIMM.
• Worldbuilding: There are some statements that expand on the general state of things in the world.
  • There have been a couple of mentions of Ottawa, with Ruby saying it's a no go zone and a news report mentioning retaking the city.
    • Later revealed that the city was turned into a warzone just to root out Post-Humans.
  • Aberrants make up a large enough amount of the homeless population in California that police leave them alone.
  • The U.N. can't decide if human trafficking Aberrants should also be considered as weapons smuggling.
• Would Hurt a Child: Ironwood has no hesitation in killing Ruby and Yang because he sees them as threats. This seems to be the general consensus of the public that even if an Aberrant is a child they should be put down.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: This is Weiss's general reaction to Ironwood's orders to have her and Blake tranquilized.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Watts sees Ironwood as this when he gives the go ahead to fire a Hellfire missile into the building Ironwood is in.