Saving the world isn't all fun and games, sadly.
- Kevin's abuse at Harvey's hand.
- Kevin in general gets dragged through the mud a lot; having been chased down by a bunch of bounty hunters, getting tortured by Animo, Psyphon's subtle "priming"...you have to remember he's only a kid.
- Ruby's somber nature towards the Grimm. The way she describes them really shows how dangerous they really are.
- Gwen, after being exposed to her family's alien nature, and just how small and defenseless she was.Gwen: "Sorry, it's just...all my life, I've been rational. Last year, if you asked me about magic or aliens, I wouldn't have given it a second thought. But with all this, it kind of...opened my eyes. There's this whole other world beyond anything science and rationality can explain, one I know nothing of and am afraid of, and that's all thanks to my sheltered upbringing."
- Actually, everything that happens to Gwen in that chapter. From getting captured by Clancy, to getting captured by Charmcaster.
- Charmcaster also gets some tearjerking moments; her intro reveals her parents are dead, her home dimension is at war...
- Ben, at the end of Chapter 24, crying at the end of the summer. He really misses Ruby.
- There's a latent sense of sadness in the way Ruby and Raven talk about Summer in Chapter 25.
- Chapter 26:
- When Kevin's father died, his mother Eva just broke down completely, losing her job and forcing Kevin to pick up the slack.
- Apparently Eva's family never approved of her marrying Devin and completely cut off contact with her, not even showing up at Devin's funeral.
- Chapter 27:
- Ruby moving away right before the start of the chapter clearly affects Ben, when Kylie innocently asks about Ruby it sets him off and he flees from the room crying.
- It's heavily implied that Ceres is a former Child Soldier, whose government and Max's higher-ups basically forced into the Zeta Squadron leadership position when she thought that she was just going for her mechanical engineering degree.
- Chapter 30:
- Manny and Helen were forced into doing Psyphon's dirty work in order to get the drug that would allow them to look human again for 72 hours, but not only was it unreliable, and liable to have killed them if they had used it much longer, they could have avoided all that just by going to the Plumbers for help.
- Chapter 31:
- What does Kylie see when Lord Haslett uses his I Know What You Fear powers on her? Her family dying in horrific ways.
- Chapter 32:
- Kevin and the AntiTrix are rejecting each other, and they can't even try removing it because it's embedded into his nervous system so deeply that it could do more harm than good to make the attempt. You can tell that everyone's worried.
- Ceres works herself to exhaustion over what's going on with Kevin.
- Chapter 33:
- Ileana Petranova was an Archimedean who apparently rivaled Azmuth in intelligence, in addition to being his best friend. When she died, he reportedly went into exile to mourn her.
- Chapter 34:
- Apparently Ben's had some bad luck with dating, which is part of why he's so hesitant to try and take things to the next step with Ruby.
- Ben only started consciously realizing his feelings for Ruby right after she moved away.
- Max's last thoughts, as he lays bleeding and dying. He imagines a more peaceful death in a hospital bed; in his vision, Ben and Ruby are apparently married.
Max: "You'll have to take it from here, Ben...I know you can do it, son. I believe in you. In all of you."- Ben finding Max's severed arm.
- The emotions leading up to moment as well. Kylie and Kevin hug each other for support, Ruby and Verdona crying loudly...Ceres mentions Ben wasn't even breathing, and she resists hugging as it might set him off more...
- Chapter 35:
- Max's funeral. Just his funeral.
- After the funeral, Ben is basically in a daze for over a week, reminded of Max by everything that used to make him happy. It takes an intervention from Yang and Ruby to allow him to finally start processing his grief enough to even cry.
- Chapter 36:
- After losing Max, Ben is rather paranoid about the safety of the rest of Zeta Squadron and Team RWBY.
- Chapter 37:
- Servantis pulls his plan to make Ben into Public Enemy #1 right after Max's memorial service.
- Servantis uses his enhanced powers to trick Ben into hurting Ruby and torments him with his failure to save Max.
- Chapter 39:
- Ceres revealed that she's fought giant centipedes on her homeworld, ones that are so dangerous that death row inmates are made to fight them. What happened to her?
- Mercury isn't exactly thrilled to be in Salem's employ...
- Chapter 44:
- Rook revealing the issues between him and his father to the group.
- Kylie's biological parents were overachievers, and she became a Stepford Smiler because of it, going into "autopilot" to get their affection, doing things that she hated, and they loved her for her achievements, not her personality. Then they got killed by a Grimm, and although she's better now, Kylie is still terrified of the specific kind of Grimm.
- Chapter 46:
- Gwen lying about going to therapy.
- Gwen misses Max so much that she tries a spell to contact his spirit.
- Chapter 48:
- Neo and Albedo both grew up alone until they found their mentors and father figures.
- Summer Rose is alive, but a captive of Salem.
- Hazel's first meeting with Albedo is especially poignant- Albedo had discovered the Grimm pools and was looking down at them. Hazel eventually joined him, and they stood there in silence, watching a Beowulf crawl out of the pools.Hazel: ...I'm sorry [Salem] got you involved in this.
- Chapter 50:
- The confirmation that Ceres, Ari, and Lev all easily qualify for Shell-Shocked Veteran, and what we see of their War Is Hell experiences.
- Ceres tried to create an incapacitating weapon against the Incursions, and inadvertently committed genocide. Even worse, she was congratulated for it.
- Chapter 55:
- Raven's attempts to be a mother are always marred by the fact she and Qrow's mother was an abusive piece of shit.
- Kevin chews out Raven- while she DOES deserve it, it's especially harsh coming from Kevin of all people.Kevin: "If anything, I'm more disgusted you'd try to win me over like this. You're Yang's absentee mom, right? I don't want to hear your stupid sob story about 'how you left for the better' or 'how you've cared from the shadows'. It helps to actually be involved . The fact you're nowhere CLOSE to her and you instead wanted, I dunno, a friend of hers to relay a message? You make me sick."
- Kevin mentally compares Raven to his own mom- absent, but only willing to swoop in when she needed to be a hero or hardass.
- Chapter 56:
- Faunus and human relations in this world aren't the best. Cat Faunus are apparently the most discriminated against, just because Sienna Khan is one.
- Increased discrimination is why Sienna possibly left; what good are you doing if you're causing more of your people to get hurt?
- Kylie and Rook have had their fair share of failures and belittlement. Rook recounts how his own mentor made him feel awful. Kylie touches upon an unprofessional review of her work that shut her down. It's actually part of the reason she switched from the Huntress program to the Plumber one and stopped using her Huntress Weapon.
- Blake's story about Adam. Holy shit, Blake's story about Adam. Adam went from a soft boy in Blake's eyes to...a textbook psychopath. Blake may have committed murder in self defense to save herself from her. She still isn't sure if he's dead.
- Yang's story about her arm. It plays out similar to the young Yang and Ruby story in canon...except Yang didn't escape unscathed.
- Faunus and human relations in this world aren't the best. Cat Faunus are apparently the most discriminated against, just because Sienna Khan is one.
- Chapter 57:
- Although it quickly improves, just how awkward things are between Weiss and Ben at the chapter's start.
- Chapter 58:
- Ben's description of the last dance he went to with Julie- Ben describes the dance as lackluster, and himself as a complete stranger between Julie's tennis team friends. Ben also mentions that Julie spent more time with friends than him, so he essentially wasted an evening.
- Ben's hesitation at asking Ruby out.
- Verdona's little snippet about her and Max.
Verdona: Max was always busy saving the world, I was always busy saving the universe, and he never wanted me to worry. I'm a bit shocked we didn't drift apart from all the work we had to do. Sweet man he was...we had many good years together. I can recall each and every memory so vividly. Truth be told, I never even planned on marrying. I guess things just changed when he stepped in.- Weiss and Kylie are confirmed to both like each other, but are too Twice Shy for either to make a move.
- Chapter 60: Ben's tiny postpartum depression...and realization that Max won't be here for the normal version of this either.
- Chapter 62:
- Rook's backstory is very, very heavy. Rook was put to high standards because he was the first born son, and with his father as chief, Rook's actions were a reflection of his father.
- Da forbade his children from supporting Rook's dream of being a Plumber.
- Rook hides everything from his father.
- This exchange.
Blonko: Father, I did not do this for reputation. I joined the Plumbers to make a difference.Da: Or did you do it to get away from us?Blonko said nothing as he stood up and walked away from the table.- At one point, Blonko sounds like he's on the verge of tears when he saw Shar's concerned look.
Blonko: I apologize, Shar. I did not leave to get away from you, or mother or father. I wanted to prove to myself that...I could make a difference. That I could stand alone without our father's reputation hanging over me, creating a standard in which I should lead with. I wanted to have a greater impact on people. And not just...a leader of a harvest... - Ceres' visions of destruction under Emerald and Hope's spell. She's back on her home planet, in the midst of the Incursian War. Her panic gets the better of her... And she manages to take Penny down with a massive blast of fire.
- Ruby's reaction; one of her best friends has been killed one of her other close friends...
- Cardin's Throw the Dog a Bone moment; for once, he realizes how serious this situation is, and he puts aside his hate for "Ben" to help him take out some Atlesian drones. Somewhat ruined by the real Ben showing up, but Cardin of all people breaking down into tears out of confusion still counts as this.
- Qrow's drinking at a bar. Why? He found out what happened to Amber. Given how much he's drinking...it wasn't pretty.
- Chapter 68:
- Min is forced to stop using her powers to help Kevin to focus on fighting Charmcaster.
- Chapter 69:
- Ozpin dying, horrified at what Salem might do now.
- Chapter 75:
- Rex venting his frustrations to the Ace Ops group about how aloof they are.
