Players and Pieces
Weiss: Look, there's no sense in dilly-dallying. Our objective is right in front of us.
Ruby: She's right. Our mission is to grab an artifact and make it back to the Cliffs.
Ruby: She's right. Our mission is to grab an artifact and make it back to the Cliffs.
Trapped between two huge Grimm, eight students split up into the nascent Teams RWBY and JNPR in a fight for survival.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Animation Bump: Team RWBY and Team JNPR's fights against the Giant Nevermore and the Death Stalker have significant better animation quality, with everyone's movement being far smoother.
- Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: Ruby does a solo, non-vocal version of this trope the first time she sees the Death Stalker. During her retreat, her cloak gets pinned by the Nevermore's Feather Flechettes.
- Big Damn Heroes: Weiss stops the Death Stalker from killing Ruby.
- Bottomless Pits: The chasm next to the cliff, seemingly.
- Circling Birdies: Ruby gets these after being slammed into a tree, though hers are actually Beowolves and not birds.
- Contrived Coincidence: As Ruby falls down to the forest temple, she and Jaune collide with each other. Jaune in the previous episode was flung away by the Deathstalker coincidentally towards the temple. The force of their impact redirects them to safely-ish land in a tree.
- Damage-Sponge Boss: The Nevermore and Death Stalker take an extreme amount of punishment; in the end, tactics are what kill them.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Jaune dives off of the tree to catch a falling Weiss, then he looks down and sees how high up they are. They both promptly crash to the ground.
- Ruby charges at the Death Stalker, which is impervious to her attacks. If it hadn't been for Weiss's intervention, she probably would've been killed.
- Eye Scream: Pyrrha throws her javelin into one of the Death Stalker's eyes to stun it.
- Fastball Special:
- The Death Stalker is slain when Pyrrha flings Nora into the air with her shield. The push upward is assisted by Nora's rocket hammer, and so is her descent towards the stinger embedded on the Death Stalker's head.
- Then the Nevermore is taken down by Ruby, Blake, and Weiss, who stretch out Blake's weapon, followed by Weiss using her Gravity Manipulation to use it like a bow to launch Ruby as a living arrow, scythe first.
- Feed It a Bomb: Yang jumps into the Nevermore’s mouth, wedges herself in its beak, and begins force-feeding the concussive blasts from her gauntlets down its throat.
- Foreshadowing: Nora's Semblance was hinted here from the pink electric discharge from the back of the Ursa she was riding before it collapse.
- Gonna Need More X: At the very end of the episode, Roman Torchwick listens to a report that the audience can't hear. Presumably it's really bad news for him judging by how he slams down the communication device, slumps and groans. A couple minutes later, he grimly intones..."We're gonna need more men."
- King Mook: The Nevermore, specifically. Also doubles as Giant Mook, its scientific name is literally Giant Nevermore.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Weiss and Ruby point out that, since they're already right in front of the relics, all they actually need to do to fulfill their mission is grab one and get back to the cliffs — fighting the Nevermore and Death Stalker would be a waste of time. Though they end up getting chased and fighting the Grimm anyway, the sentiment still stands.Jaune: Run and live. That is an idea I can get behind.
- Off with His Head!: Ruby kills the Giant Nevermore via decapitation after dragging it up a cliff face while shooting it in the head.
- Punctuated Pounding: Yang does this while caught in the Nevermore's mouth, punching it.Yang: I! HOPE! YOU'RE! HUN! GRY!
- Recoil Boost: At several different points during the fight, Ruby, Yang, and Nora fire their guns to propel themselves through the air or gain a burst of speed.
- Say My Name: A bit of a string of this once Pyrrha arrived at the temple while being chased by a Deathstalker.Pyrrha: Jaune!
Jaune: Pyrrha!
Ruby: Whoa!
Jaune: Ruby!
Yang: Ruby?
Ruby: Yang!
Nora: Nora! - Shapes of Disappearance: After riding alongside Nora to the relic site atop an Ursa (which promptly drops dead from Nora's.... enthusiasm), Ren is clearly out of breath and between gasps asks Nora to never do that again. Unfortunately for him, Nora already left his side, leaving behind a pink-colored outline of herself.
- The Strategist:
- Ruby comes up with a plan to slay the Nevermore after seeing her teammates' abilities in action.
- Jaune quickly identifies that the Death Stalker's stinger is a weakness due to it being loose. He instructs Pyrrha to sever it from the Death Stalker's tail, and then has Nora smash the stinger into the Grimm's skull.
- Theme Music Power-Up: "Red Like Roses Part 2" — Volume 1's theme song — plays during the final part of the fight. It starts out with just the instrumentals during the Death Stalker fight, while the lyrics kick in as the future Team RWBY finishes off the Giant Nevermore.
- Wall Run: Blake does this when the Nevermore smashes the entire sanctuary structure.
- With the help of Weiss's glyphs, Ruby runs up a cliff face after hooking the Nevermore's neck in her scythe blade, dragging it up the wall and finally decapitating it.
"It looks like things are shaping up to be an... interesting year."
