Fanfic / Fairies of the Shattered Moon

"They're our guildmarks. The symbol of Fairy Tail wizards."

— Ruby Rose

When Team RWBY discover a mysterious book right before the Vytal Festival, they are blasted to a place of magic and wonder. A few days later, they return, having spent six months as Fairy Tail wizards, forging bonds that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. But answers still elude the young huntresses. Who sent the book? And what link does it have with Fairy Tail?

Fairies of the Shattered Moon by TheMaster4444 is a crossover fic between RWBY and Fairy Tail. Similar to the author's other work RWBY Zero, the story combines the lores of the two series to weave a single epic adventure, as Team RWBY's journey to understand how they were sent to Fairy Tail spirals into a grand adventure that spans time and space, with the fate of their world hanging by a thread.

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Tropes present in Fairies of the Shattered Moon:

#-M

• The Ace: End, Yang openly calls him Salem's Ace. It his job to take care of any threat that the Gates can't handle by themselves and its noted by the author that his base form alone is more powerful then any of the Gates released ones. His powers include Fire Curses that can obliterate an entire tribe, Super-Strength, Super-Toughness, Anti-Magic, and he is an Immortal Breaker. End is also immune to all forms of Fire Magic including Devil Slayer Fire Magic which should be especially effective against demons like him. He also shows immense skill and precision with his Fire Curses as well as being able to use them far more creatively then Natsu ever used his Fire Magic. His feats include wiping out the Branwen tribe in one move, Curbstomps Yang and Raven, and later at the battle of Haven he defeats both Jaune and Wendy while the latter is in Dragon Force and Jaune distracting him is the only reason he didn't kill all the Fairy Tail Wizards. He later defeats Erza in the Grimmlands and manages to melt Gray's Ice Devil Slayer Magic.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: The Brother Gods' relationship isn't too different from canon. But here, their relationship is described a lot more in detail.
  • Salem's entire relationship with her inner circle is completely different here, then in canon. In canon Salem is a Bad Boss who has little concern for her followers safety and doesn't hesitate to threaten or physically harm them if they fail and/or disobey her. Also most of her followers only work for her because they have their own goals that they need Salem to achieve or are terrified of her. Here she genuinely cares for for her circle and even considers them her friends. In addition rather then ruling through fear she in fact inspires genuine respect, loyalty and even admiration and doesn't have any problems being being disagreed with or questioned.
  • Salem's relationship with Cinder in particular stands out. In canon Salem is physically and emotionally abusive to Cinder and clearly manipulates her to keep her loyal. Here she tries to be a genuine positive influence on Cinder encouraging her to make friends and telling her that power will not make her happy.
• Adaptation Species Change: Downplayed example with Penny except for ability to naturally use magic (difference shared by some human characters) she is the same like in canon but she was identified as Machia meaning that she isn’t Single Specimen Species
• Adaptational Backstory Change: For Tyrian. In canon, he was a serial killer across Anima before his death was faked and he fell in with Salem. Here, he is a former member of the White Fang who joined solely for the opportunity to kill people. When his violent activities drew too much attention to the group, the Albains tried to have him killed by sending him into Grimmlands, where he instead was discovered by Salem.
  • Hazel in canon after his sister is killed in a training mission is approached by Salem who initially he killed several times only for her to reform shortly afterwards and he joins her after becoming convinced that fighting her is pointless in addition to her promising vengeance on Ozpin. Here he used to be a member of Ozpin's inner circle but after his sister is killed by Grimm he charges off into the Grimmlands to try and destroy Salem who he thinks is the Grimms master. When he meets her however he learns the full story and agreeing with Salem's plans and goals he becomes a Gate.
• Adaptational Badass: Salem's entire faction is this. In the original series, most of them were only skilled fighters. Here, thanks to Neo-Hell's Core, many of them have become One Man Armies. It's notable that it has required team-ups by multiple wizards to defeat any of them, leaving several of their opponents seriously injured, and, in several cases, they were actually pulling their punches due to Salem's orders to capture Team RWBY or any Fairy Tail wizard rather than kill them. In addition they also have several new members and work together far more effectively albeit there is still some Teeth-Clenched Teamwork between certain members.
  • Arthur Watts in particular shows. In the RWBY series, he is only a good shot with some hand to hand skills. Here, thanks to becoming a Gate, it's noted that he is fully capable of killing all of the Ace Ops (Atlas elite Specialist Team) by himself and later Penny admitted she could not beat him one on one.
  • Salem herself. In the RWBY series Ozma is the superior fighter and Salem only wins due to her immortality. Here its shown that Salem is far more powerful and that Ozma only manages to temporarily kill her due to Salem losing her senses thanks to Serams madness.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Salem goes from the Faux Affably Evil of RWBY canon to a more genuine Affably Evil, showing much more care and respect for her subordinates to the point of encouraging The Power of Friendship and unlike her canon self who wants to wipe out humanity permanently out of a desire of vengeance against Ozpin and the gods and to selfishly end her immortality, she genuinely wants to destroy the Grimm and reunite humanity and the Faunus, albeit using very extreme methods to do so, and has more-or-less abandoned her desire to die (at least until her main goal is finished).
  • Raven in canon is depicted as something of a Dirty Coward Hypocrite trying to hide her fears behind being The Social Darwinist and was willing to throw just about anyone else, including her family, under the bus to save her own skin. Here, she still is, but her reasoning behind it is gone into and more justified. She tried to use the Relic of Knowledge alongside Lionheart and the former Spring Maiden to find a way to defeat Salem, but stumbled on the Awful Truth of Salem's immortality and then had a front-row seat to watching Summer die when she tried to warn her about this. While she did kill the previous Spring Maiden and admits to it, it's also showed she did care about her and is trying to avoid showing it. She never told Qrow the Awful Truth because she knew it'd send him over the Heroic BSoD line and he'd end up no better than her.
  • To a certain extent the God of Light. The curse of immortality that he gave Salem rather than a punishment like in canon was a misguided attempt to help her as well as to protect her from his brother who wanted to flay her alive. He is also more sympathetic to Salem's request to revive Ozma and even looked into a way of doing so without breaking the laws of the universe.
• Affably Evil:
  • Salem in this fic is far chummier than in canon, to the point she seems to be a genuinely Benevolent Boss to work under and who's goal at least in part involves destroying the Grimm once and for all. Cinder herself actually gets annoyed at how much she pushes the "friendship and rainbows" crusade. However, it seems these feelings only extend to the members of her inner circle and anyone outside of this select group are only either useful or in her way.
  • Teacher/Esper Rosenflos/Summer Rose is working for Salem and performing acts that threaten the lives of countless people. Yet she's incredibly friendly and personable, doesn't like seeing children get hurt, and has enough of a moral compass to know what she's doing is reprehensible but does it anyway because she truly believes what she's doing is for the betterment of future generations.
• Agony Beam: An unintentional example with Salem's Hell's Core. The process of transforming someone into a demon is extremely excruciating even after Watts managed to perfect it. The original version would kill or drive someone insane in the best-case scenario, with situations like the person's heart stopping being very much possible. The only known survivors of the original were Hazel (who cheated with his Semblance), Tyrian (who was already Ax-Crazy and so had Insanity Immunity), and Happy (who was just that determined to survive for Natsu's sake).
• Ambiguously Evil: Esper Rosenflos. While so far she has presented herself as a well-meaning councilwoman and well-liked by both most of the elite in Atlas, including General Ironwood and Jacques, and the common people of Mantle, such as Robyn and her people, there are several — such as Gray and Atlas Intelligence — who note that she is too good to be true and are wary of her actions. Esper herself admits in a conversation with Whitley that she has blood on her hands for her past actions and admits she occasionally wonders if the suffering she causes is worth the good she hopes will result. She later refuses emergency powers in the wake of the murder of General Ironwood, not wanting to be seen using a national tragedy as a springboard for gaining power and being labeled a tyrant. However, she then accepts emergency powers in the wake of a failed attempted coup by Ironwood's necromancy-controlled corpse, Harriet, Elm, and Vine, resulting in the deaths of the latter three and enabling her to declare Atlas in a state of crisis while she herself is seen as a hero. The entire situation worked out too well for Esper, as she now effectively has complete control over the Kingdom of Atlas and all of her opposition has either been brought to her side, killed off, or discredited. Finally laid to rest in Chapter 31, where it's revealed she's in fact the real COMMAND ESR and the mysterious "Teacher" of Salem's Gates, having been manipulating everyone in Atlas to gain both unlimited power and public trust. That doesn't mean, however, that her previous demeanor or her intentions were in any way fake either.
• Amnesiac Hero: This seems to be the case with Erza, who has forgotten her time as a Fairy Tail Wizard and has been living in Remnant for nearly 20 years as Scarlet Nikos, the mother of Pyrrha Nikos. She doesn't even remember who Pyrrha's father is, but it is strongly implied to be Jellal.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Despite Blake accessing her Take-Over: Spirit Soul's first Grimm form to protect her partner from Adam, Yang still ends up losing an arm when Blake is overwhelmed by the Full-Body Take Over and goes wild. She is riddled with guilt over what happened.
  • Later still, Yang cuts off her other arm's hand with a broken teacup (left behind by Happy) in order to get loose from the sealstone cuff around her wrist.
• And I Must Scream:
  • We briefly get Mercury's point-of-view after he's killed by Ren, but before he's sent back to Hell's Core for his resurrection. It's not very pretty.
  • Cinder ends up locked inside the Vault of the Spring Maiden, completely cut off in a pocket dimension of endless desert and a scorching sun. The only ways out would be for the Spring Maiden to open the door (something that Raven would never do willingly) or to kill herself. Also, because time flows differently within the pocket dimension, she spent far longer than just a few hours in there, but days, weeks, months, or possibly even years to the point if she were still human she would have long ago died of exposure, thirst, or hunger before she finally went through with her suicide, which involved self-destructing from her own Spirit Slayer Magic once the Scarab Grimm shielding her half-Celestial Spirit body was destroyed.
  • According to Chapter 56, Summer spent a long time in the void between her first death and her eventual resurrection as a Gate, revealed in Chapter 57 to have been about a year.
• And Then What?: Summer asks this question to Raven about what she thinks will happen after she kills her. Raven replies that she expects Yang or Salem will kill her shortly afterwards. Summer clarifies that what she thinks will happen when the Umbral Spirit King arrives. Raven responds that she doesn't know but expects Fairy Tail to fight him. Summer later on completely loses her temper for the first time in the story screaming at Raven and Tai that Fairy Tail has not offered one viable alternative to Salem's plans and that all they are doing is fighting to ensure that the Umbral Spirit King will be able to kill everyone on Remnant when he arrives.
• Anti-Magic: End's arguably most dangerous power is his ability to burn through magic. This makes countering his attacks extremely difficult for Wizards. Unlike Natsu who has to access his most powerful forms to achieve this, all of End's curses have access to this ability without him having to do anything. Examples of this include Wendy's healing magic having limited effect on the burns he gave Raven and Oscar had a hard time using his time magic to clear a path through parts of Haven brought down by End's fire.
• Archenemy:
  • Cinder is this for Pyrrha. Pyrrha was greatly traumatized by how helpless she was against Cinder at the Fall, and has since become obsessed with gaining more power solely so she can defeat her. She was willing to learn a Death Magic spell like Altaris despite the great risk to herself, and against the warnings of Ozpin and her mother.
  • Watts manages to make Weiss and Penny his due to his role in the deaths of their parents and/or parental figures.
  • Esper/Summer seems to be shaping up as one for Winter and Weiss.
  • Many assume that Ozpin and Salem are this. Though in reality Salem sees the Brothers and Umbral Spirit King as her true enemies and compared to the hatred she feels for them makes her enmity with Ozpin seem like mild dislike
• The Archmage: Ozma was this in his first life. He was the inventor of the Arc of Time and several other Lost Magics and possessed far greater mastery over them than anyone else after him. By the time of Fairy Tail canon he is touted as one of the greatest Wizards to have ever lived and is credited as being the one responsible for single-handedly pulling the world out of the dark ages where Zeref's demons caused untold destruction across the planet, and reduced their numbers to the scant few there are by the time of the Tartaros Arc.
  • Salem equals and possibly exceeds her former husband in this though. She invented the Urano Metria spell that Lucy uses and through studying Zeref's notes she has shown vast knowledge of both magic and curses and was able to modify the Universe One Spell despite not being a master enchanter a feat that Irene Belserion one of the greatest magic users of all time begrudgingly praises.
• Artificial Limbs:
  • As per canon, Yang. However, she forgoes a cybernetic arm in this continuity for one made of fire, utilizing Macao's Purple Flare to make an arm that won't burn everything around her.
  • And then inverted with Mercury, who after his first death as an Eclipse Etherious is revived with fully recreated flesh-and-blood legs.
• Awesome, but Impractical: End's Etherious Form makes him all but invincible buts its so indiscriminately destructive that his allies have to run for their lives to avoid the blast radius making it impractical to use in any situation where someone he doesn't want dead is within a few miles of him.
• Axe-Crazy: Tyrian as per usual though thanks to Salem having very different goals then in canon he shows far more restraint.
• Back from the Dead: Watts can do this at will thanks to his Necromancy Curse, and unlike Keyes he made a point of perfecting it so that his new minions can't attack him. He revives Ironwood, Adam, and Harriet specifically, and he admits to Weiss he killed Klein himself and raised him to commit the Schnee Manor bombing.
• Badass Boast: In order to convince Sienna Khan that joining Salem is the best option, Hazel says that they will take the entire kingdom of Atlas to prove it. They succeed, and they managed it with no casualties to themselves that weren't expendable (like Adam).
  • When Yang asks Raven who End is, he answers and makes it clear just how utterly screwed the two of them are.
    End:I am the Lord Ophiuchus, protector of the Queen's gates. Human, faunus, Grimm, demon or even gods, it does not matter. Before me all things are equally ash.
• Badass Decay: Humanity thanks to the Gods depriving the world of most of its Ethernano has grown much weaker then it was when Remnant was Earthland. First only 5 percent of humans have the potential to use magic (in Earthland it was double that). Whats more of those 5 percent their origins are so small the magic they can use is quite limited meaning that even humans with above average Origins like Jaune are still well below S class wizards in raw power. They do have Aura and Semblances which do help and are useful but they ultimately cant compete with the raw power of magic. One of Salems's goals is to reverse this decay.
  • Ozpin suffers badly from this. At the height of his powers as Ozma he defeated dozens of Etherious, held his own in a fight with Mard Geer (who was far stronger then he was in the Tartaros Arc) and even managed to temporarily kill Salem (though this was largely due to Seram's madness depriving her of her senses and many of her powers). By the start of the story however he loses to Cinder in a one on one when she was just a Maiden and didn't even cause her any significant wounds due to his body's Origin being so small. Oscar becoming his next host helped as he has a much larger origin but he is still far weaker then he was as Ozma.
  • Erza thanks to her amnesia has forgotten how to use her magic. While her skills are as sharp as ever she is far weaker then she was in Earthland. Qrow at one point bluntly tells her that without her magic she wont be much help against Salem's Forces. The decay is reversed after Wendy restores her memories.
• Badass Family: Pyrrha's family includes, her mother, Erza Scarlet, one of Fairy Tail's strongest members and one of the few who can hold their own in a one on one with a Gate, her father, Jellal Fernandez, a Wizard Saint and leader of Crime Sorciere, and her grandmother, Irene Belserion, one of the most powerful wizards to ever live who created Dragon Slayer magic and whose prowess as an enchanter makes Wendy look like an amateur. Plus there is Pyrrha herself, a prodigal fighter and magic-user, tournament champion, and the best huntress of her year.
• Badass Normal: Neo has no magical power whatsoever but she proves a challenging opponent for Ruby (who in addition to learning magic has greatly improved her combat skills) with nothing but her martial arts and her Semblance (which is mostly useful for diversions).
• Bad Boss: Seram and the Umbral Spirit King don't hesitate to send the Umbral Spirits to Remnant despite the fact that arriving there costs them their sanity and all sense of reason turning them into almost mindless beasts, The Grimm.
• Bare-Handed Blade Block: Hazel catches Adam's blade and is not remotely bothered by it.
• The Beast Master: Salem does have control over the Grimm in her vicinity though it's considerably more limited than in canon.
• Benevolent Boss: Strangely enough Salem is this unlike in canon. She sincerely cares for the wellbeing of her followers, treats them with respect, and never lies or mistreats them as well as encouraging good relations with one another, to mixed effect. Even when Cinder causes Salem's forces to fail to gain the Relic of Knowledge, the worst she does is scold her for her foolishness and bloodthirstiness and refuse to let her regain the Maiden powers.
• Berserk Button: For End, it is being called "Natsu". End is the true personality of E.N.D. and absolutely furious when he is identified with Natsu, to the point he can fly into murderous rage and has to physically restrain himself from harming anyone he doesn't want to. Also, Lucy's very existence pushes this into overdrive, since she's the one who "killed" him to save Natsu. He also hates being called E.N.D. His absolute biggest one however is saying he is similar to Natsu.
  • For Erza, hurt Pyrrha in any way or form and she will rip you to pieces.
  • For Cinder, it's implying that either her or her beloved Teacher are weak. She nearly attacks Tyrian and Watts for doing so. Also, don't insult her father, as Mercury discovered when he compared the late Ben Autumn with Marcus Black.
  • Hazel as per canon is Ozpin (though his hatred is more understandable here) even bringing him up in conversation causes him to drop his stoic demeanor. He comes close to attacking Oscar when he sees the Long Memory and has to be calmed down by Salem and Sienna.
• Beware the Silly Ones: An interesting case where the "Beware" part becomes evident before the "Silly" part. Despite Happy having Took a Level in Badass and being more serious than he used to be, he's still a goofball at heart who hadn't made the connection that Qrow was Ruby's uncle despite not just hearing about him from her stories back in Earthland, but also knowing that Raven is both Yang's mom (and by extension Ruby's sort-of step-mom) and Qrow's sister. It is exactly the kind of lovable mistake that Happy would make.
  • Aries warns Jaune that despite his silly personality Franmath is extremely dangerous. This is proven true when Jaune gains access to Franmath's powers and is driven mad by the Ascension being interrupted too soon he absorbs Ren's soul gaining access to his Crash Magic which he uses to destroy Salem's castle.
• Be Yourself: Juvia and Gray's critique of Weiss' fighting style after her spar with the former. While Weiss has expertly learned the techniques that Gray has taught her, she ultimately does not create much beyond them as years of highly disciplined Schnee style of fighting. This is detrimental when using Maker Magic, which relies on creativity. Indeed, the closest Weiss came to challenging Juvia was when she combined Ice-Make Lance with her time dilation glyphs to create Ice-Make Phalanx.
• Big Bad Friend: Though none of them realize it yet, Team RWBY are this to Salem, as they befriended her past self Sitara when they went back in time. End is very much amused to realize in Chapter 45 that Ozpin still hadn't told Ruby Salem's actual name, and casually drops the reveal on Yang in Chapter 51 to her shock.
• Big Brother Mentor: Multiple Fairy Tail members end up as this to the members of Team RWBY.
  • Erza to Ruby.
  • Gray to Weiss.
  • Mirajane to Blake.
  • Natsu to Yang.
  • Erza also seems to serve this role for Wendy, similar to Fairy Tail canon but given a bit more focus.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Tyrian, of all people, gets a moment of this, performing a Dynamic Entry by hitting a berserk Blake with Sand Buster only moments before she kills Kali.
  • Penny comes rushing in to save Weiss from being sent off to Salem by Watts, attacking the Bullhead they're in and grabbing Weiss before blowing out the back and flying off with her friend in tow.
  • Erza jumps in to fight Cinder after the latter defeats both Pyrrha and Raven.
  • Penny and Gray appear at the end of the Battle of Haven to get the heroes sans Yang and Jaune to Patch and away from Summer and her Atlas agents.
• Big Good: With Ozpin discredited in the aftermath of Jinn's flashbacks, Erza is stepping up to be the leader of the Fairy Tail Wizards.
  • Its worth noting however that Salem views herself as the real Big Good and the only one who can lead Remnant to defeat the Brothers and save mankind. All of her followers firmly believe this and even Qrow and Pyrrha, point out that she is the only one who has a plan to prevent the Umbral Spirit King from finishing them all off.
• Blade Enthusiast: Esper Rosenflos/Summer Rose is mainly seen using knives in combat, as while her blade clone Semblance can presumably work with just about any blade, knives are just so convenient in their size to carry around in number and concealment.
• Blind Obedience: As in canon, the Ace-Ops to General Ironwood, which is exploited by Teacher and Watts who use Ironwood's reanimated corpse to stage a military coup. Though Vine does express some apprehension before going along, Elm and especially Harriet follow without question. The coup ends in failure and in the deaths of those three. Clover and Marrow are safe due to the former's semblance doing everything in its power to make them unavailable at the moment of the coup, saving them from the fallout.
• Blood Knight: End clearly gets a kick out of fighting and loves to show off his enormous power. When Erza shows up during the Haven battle, he is thrilled at the opportunity to fight her.
  • Tyrian is also this as he enjoys fighting Lucy, Blake, and Loke, and is delighted at the chance to use his Eclipse Etherious Form.
• Bodyguard Betrayal: A two-fold example. When the reanimated Ironwood begins his coup, Watts' Black Queen Virus hijacks the Atlesian Knights protecting the Council, and join in shooting. When the Tremaines crash the party intent on saving the Council, Watts releases his control of the Knights and Ironwood's corpse, and Harriet barely has time to register these occurrences before her aura is shredded by the Knights' bullets, leaving them easy prey for the Tremaines and Esper.
• Blow You Away: As Hazel has gained Tempester's powers one of his abilities includes this. He uses it at one point to blow back Adam and Sienna's treacherous bodyguards during the formers coup attempt.
  • Salem can also use Air Magic and like in canon she uses it to levitate.
• Blunt "Yes": When a member of the Branwen Tribe shouts at End if he thinks he can threaten them he responds with this before killing them all shortly afterwards.
• Boring, but Practical: Salem's Transitive Curse allows her to cast any curse as Magic or any Magic as a Curse. Its not as flashy as many of the other Curses the Etherious of Tartaros had but it allows her to fully use her magic in an Ethernano deprived Remnant and against opponents who can absorb or are immune to magic its invaluable.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The sides involving Salem's plans.
  • On one hand, Salem and the Twelve Celestials aren't wrong to try and save humanity by de-throning and killing the Brother Gods. The two who turned Fairy Tail's home into what it is now, with Grimm all over and little magic. Where if the plan to merge humans and Celestials happens, then peace can happen and no more petty fights. With everyone happy.
  • On Ozma's side, this plan is a massive risk despite the numerous benefits. For one, the Brother Gods are the most powerful force in the universe. And Ozma stating that even with Salem's new 'Master Race', just because Fairy Tail won many times, doesn't mean they can win against them and if they lose...then everyone loses.
  • Fairy Tail and Salem's side also both have compelling arguments regarding Salem's World Conquest plans. On the one hand Fairy Tail is right when they point out that such a war of conquest would involve significant bloodshed and that it is wrong to force your ideals on people. On the other hand Salem is not wrong when she states that humans would never become Eclipse Etherious on their own and without that evolution they will be wiped out by the Umbral Spirt King. In addition Sienna isn't wrong in her conviction that Salem would be a superior ruler then the various councils across the Kingdoms as she has no prejudice against the Faunus, greed or desire for power for its own sake and in fact despises those that do and that her rule would be immensely beneficial to the Faunus.
• Bound and Gagged: Blake's training with Mira involved being strapped into full bondage gear, complete with a ballgag.
• Break the Cutie: The author clearly loves doing this with Happy, Wendy and Ruby all being absolutely crushed by despair at various points.
• Breaking the Fellowship: By the end of the battle at the Grimmlands, the forces of the heroes are left split apart.
  • Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Nora, Pyrrha, Penny, Erza, Gray, Raven, Qrow, Carla, Tai, Juvia, and Jellal manage to make it back to Vale, with Erza hospitalized and unable to feel her limbs anymore, and Weiss having lost an eye to Yang. Glynda houses them at Beacon in the meantime as she and Ruby prepare to reveal the truth to the Vale Council.
  • Yang has become a Fallen Hero, willingly joining Salem's Gates so as to get revenge on Weiss for killing Summer, no longer able to trust her former "friends" or even sister. Wendy and Oscar have meanwhile become plants in Salem's group with Happy's assistance, Wendy undergoing a Memory Gambit thanks to Irene and Oscar claiming he wants Oz out of his body in exchange.
  • The mishap with Neo-Hell's Core had Jaune absorb Ren using Franmalth's power before going berserk, and is now left comatose. Lucy meanwhile sacrificed herself to stop End, only surviving thanks to a Fairy Sphere, and likewise comatose. And just prior, in order to summon the Celestial Spirit King, she had to break Leo's Key, removing Loke from the story.
• Breather Episode: The first part of Chapter 28 is meant to be this after the revelations of Chapters 26 and 27, focusing on Cinder reluctantly attempting to treat Mercury and Emerald as proper equals and friends with Salem watching over the proceeding like an embarrassing parent, even taking photos of them. The rest of Chapter 28 immediately follows that up with the Atlas plot-line where everything goes to hell in a handbasket. The Schnee Manor explodes due to Klein bringing in a bomb while being controlled by the hidden Gate in Atlas via the Macro Curse, resulting in his own death and that of Jacques, Willow, and General Ironwood. After that, a badly injured Weiss gets similarly controlled and is forced to stab Whitley, resulting in her arrest as the primary suspect in the incident.
• Broken Ace: Esper Rosenflos / Summer Rose is considered by Ozpin to have been an even more talented student at Beacon then Pyrrha (who in this universe received training from Erza) In addition, she is a master tactician and strategist and a skilled manipulator both of people and public opinion. Her death however, which accomplished nothing but causing her family pain and the dissolution of her beloved team, combined with learning that Ozpin, her mentor and father figure, had been lying to her for years about who and what Salem is and being unable to approach her friends and family without risking the timeline, shattered her idealism. This has led her to believe that Heroes can't save the world and caused her to use methods which she admits are amoral and she has come to view herself as a necessary monster.
• Broken Pedestal: Ozpin is this to most of the characters when its revealed that he has been lying about who and what Salem is as well as the fact that he has no idea on how to defeat her or save the world. Qrow, who had dedicated his life to Ozpin's war, and Summer, who had come to view Ozpin as a father figure, are particularly crushed upon learning the full story from Jinn and Salem herself respectively.
• Butt-Monkey: Leo is this for Salem's team. Salem views him with contempt for his cowardice and other then Summer all of her followers feel the same. He spends most of his time being bossed around by End, Happy, and Cinder, including when Happy orders him to make tea for a captive Yang. He then gets decked by Yang as she escapes and spends the entire battle of Haven unconscious while his school is nearly burned to the ground. When End orders a retreat, he makes no effort to go and save him (which is notable given that End does show concern for his comrades) and he would have burned to death if the Gate of the Maiden still didn't view him as an old friend and got him out of the school.
• Call-Forward: Esper justifies destroying Ironwood's reputation by raising his corpse to attack the Atlas Council by pointing out Ironwood was a man willing to sacrifice anything, including his reputation if he thought it was for a greater cause. As shown in Volume 7 of RWBY, she isn't wrong about that in the slightest.
• Came Back Strong: According to Pietro, Penny when rebuilt was not only improved with the most cutting-edge technology Pietro could obtain, but was also upgraded with data he gained from working with the Relic of Creation. Judging from his own wording, she's also capable of using magic now.
• Can't Catch Up: Commented upon by Qrow and Sun, who both note that without magic, they're basically useless when it comes to facing off against the real threats coming up. Sure, they can take on Grimm no problem, but the heroes are effectively One-Man Armies who can solo hordes without breaking a sweat and their enemies border on Physical God-tier opponents. It's hard for them not to feel useless.
  • Pyrrha laments this when fighting Cinder. In the aftermath of their fight at Beacon, she trains in magic and is as talented at it as she is in physical combat, reworking her fighting style to compliment it. But unfortunately for her, by the time of their second clash Cinder has become a Gate and the difference in power is arguably even bigger than when they first fought and she is once again quickly defeated when Cinder goes all out.
• Cerebus Retcon: The revelations of the origins of the Grimm in this universe make the Schnee family's Semblance much more sinister than in canon, as Grimm are in fact Umbral Spirits, counterparts to the Celestial Spirits, and their ability to summon them makes the Schnees effectively Umbral Spirit Mages. Add in the fact that the Umbral Spirit King is trying to find a way to enter the real world so he can wipe out humanity as per the command of the God of Darkness, and that Weiss is starting to hear voices that sound a lot like "OPEN THE GATE"...
• The Chains of Commanding:
  • Ruby struggles with this a bit, given she's not only Team RWBY's leader but has effectively become JNPR's in addition to being their magic teacher in the wake of Beacon's destruction. Part of her admiration for Erza is how well she's able to handle the demands of being a leader.
  • Winter struggles with this when Ironwood promotes her to head of the Specialists after the Fall of Beacon. She is now not only privy to much more classified information, but there's a limit to how much she's allowed to share with Weiss despite how much she cares for and wants to help her. Then the Schnee Manor explodes and she has to struggle with being responsible for Ironwood's secret project, while still reeling from the loss of her mother and father-figure, her brother being stabbed, her sister being framed for terrorism and attempted murder of said brother, all while trying to figure out who she can really trust, after how deeply Salem's forces infiltrated Atlas' infrastructure.
• The Chessmaster: Esper Rosenflos/Summer Rose proves to be a master at both long term planning and quick improvisation such that even the extremely arrogant Watts praises her intellect. She constantly keeps the heroes guessing about who they can trust and what to do next so that by the time they figure everything out it's too late and she has already won and Penny's interference is the only reason it's not a complete victory. More than her impressive combat ability it's this trait that makes her so dangerous. What's worse is that she is in no way arrogant or underestimates her opponents such as when she accepted that Gray could conceivably defeat her even with both her Gate and Maiden powers so she sabotages him when he was injured. Gray admits that the heroes lost before they even started.
  • Salem as per usual. She for the most part makes excellent use of her subordinates various skills deploying them to where they will do the most good such as sending the diplomatic and humble Hazel to successfully bring the White Fang into the fold, having the highly intelligent and charismatic Summer be placed in charge of taking over Atlas and then sending Watts with his vast technical skills to assist her. So far she has successfully gained control over Atlas the most powerful kingdom of Remnant as well as the White Fang which has many huntsman level fighters in their ranks. She is not perfect however as she admits that she gave Cinder far too much of a free hand during the Beacon operation.
• Co-Dragons:
  • End a.k.a. The Ophiuchus, who serves as Salem's greatest warrior. He is the strongest member of Salem's inner circle who stands head and shoulders above the other Gates with only Salem herself as his equal. When he puts his foot down, the others stop whatever they're doing and listen. Salem trusts him enough to grant him a great degree of autonomy in how he accomplishes their goals, and the two certainly seem to consider the other a friend. He's actually the true personality of E.N.D. in control of Natsu's body.
  • Teacher/Esper Rosenflos a.k.a. the Gate of the Maiden, while not the strongest member of the Gates, is treated with the same level of respect, if not more, as The Ophiuchus by her colleagues. Cinder practically worships her while even the likes of Watts has great respect for her abilities. Salem considers her trusted enough to give her the important deep-cover assignment of priming Atlas for their takeover and it's indicated that she helped the Queen of Grimm devise her current strategy in her war with Ozpin. It's not for nothing that the author himself notes that Teacher is the "Black Queen" of Salem's side.
• Combat Pragmatist: Teacher/Esper Rosenflos/Summer Rose favors this. When Gray in injured in the Schnee Manor bombing, she has Ana poison him with Bane Particles. Then during the fight at Amity, she activates them, badly weakening the only one in Atlas who had any chance at defeating her in combat and guaranteeing her victory.
  • Cinder, who is Teacher's student and adopted daughter, has adopted this. During the Battle of Haven, Erza gains the upper hand so she targets the unconscious Pyrrha, forcing Erza to move to defend her and buying Cinder some breathing space. She then proceeds to hit Erza repeatedly with barrages of arrows and would have defeated her if it wasn't for Raven's interference.
  • Both End and Erza make use of psychological warfare against each other to try and make the other angry and unbalanced. Though in Erza's case it backfires as it causes End to be so enraged that he mortally wounds her.
• Combo Platter Powers:
  • Salem's inner circle, the "Gates", each use one of the magics of the 12 Zodiac Celestial Spirits and one of the curses of the Etherious from the Books of Zeref; in addition to their own natural abilities and Semblances. So far:
    • Cinder possesses, in addition to the Fall Maiden's powers until she loses them when she's forced to kill herself to escape the Vault of the Spring Maiden, the powers of Sagittarius and Kyouka. She also used to have Silver Eyes and possesses Golden Eyes now, but she has personal hang-ups on actually relying on them.
    • Tyrian has the powers of Scorpio and Jackal.
    • Hazel has the powers of Taurus and Tempester.
    • Watts has the powers of Capricorn (and by extension Zoldeo) and Keyes.
    • "Teacher"/Esper/Summer has the powers of Virgo and Seilah. She also possesses transformation magic, the power of the Winter Maiden, and Golden Eyes (another generation of Spirit Slayer magic).
    • Mercury has the powers of Pisces and Torafuzar.
    • Emerald has the powers of Gemini and Lummy. And after Cinder kills herself in the Vault of the Spring Maiden, she gets the Fall Maiden powers too.
    • Sienna Khan has the powers of Jiemma and Libra.
    • Jaune has the powers of Franmalth and Aries.
  • Blake and others quickly learn that when she loses herself to a Full-Body Takeover, the resulting Grimm-hybrid can still user her Aura and Semblance, making it far deadlier than pretty much any other Grimm.
• Complete Immortality: End quite casually drops The Reveal that the reason the Grimm are practically unstoppable is because as Umbral Spirits, unless slain by a Spirit Slayer or absorbed by a expert in Spirit Take-Over magic, they cannot truly die and simply be dispelled from the world, upon which they'll return to the Umbral Spirit World to await their chance to return to Remnant through the Grimm pools in the Grimmlands to continue the God of Darkness's mission to finish off humanity. Qrow immediately tries to claim that Ozpin would have told them about this if it were true. Of course, if anyone knows anything about Ozpin...
  • Salem like in canon has thanks to being cursed by the Gods. The only one who could possibly get around it is End (her friend and second in command) thanks to him being made to overcome the Curse of the Gods by Zeref.
• Cool Mask: Raven's mask in addition to looking cool was also able to slow the ethernano output of her Maiden powers to a crawl such that only a being like End could have noticed it. It was given to her by Di Maria.
• Cosmic Plaything: The Universe (and the Brothers) seems determined that neither Salem or Ozpin should remain happy for long.
• The Cracker: Despite now being a Gate and one of the strongest beings on Remnant, the most dangerous thing about Watts, like in canon, is his hacking skills. Here, due to using his Gate abilities to sneak into Pietro's personal terminal, he was able to bypass Atlas's upgraded defenses and get into the military grid, enabling him to hack the Atlesian knights guarding the council to devastating effect.
• Crapsack World: Remnant is this. Its a post apocalyptic wasteland filled with Grimm.
• Cruel to Be Kind: Raven ran away from Ozpin's side, but never told Qrow what she had learned from Jinn. She knew how her brother had devoted his whole life to standing with Ozpin, and if he knew that Salem was immortal, it would've broken him. Of course, once the Awful Truth comes out anyways she bitterly notes that it's not much comfort at all.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Hazel demonstrates the powers of a Gate by effortlessly defeating Adam (one of the most skilled fighters of RWBY) and his supporters when they try to assassinate Sienna.
  • End also casually overwhelms Raven (the Spring Maiden) and Yang (a Fire Devil Slayer who should have the advantage in Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors) showing that he can more than back up his claim to be the most powerful being on Remnant.
  • Once Cinder activates her Eclipse Etharious form, she quickly crushes Raven and Pyrrha with only Erza's appearance preventing her from killing Pyrrha and claiming the Spring Maiden powers from Raven.
  • Gray manages to defeat and freeze Mercury with a single attack.
  • Salem makes short work of Jaune, who is a Gate and at that time had access to Crash Magic.
• Cycle of Revenge: Weiss sought revenge on Summer who she blamed for much of her suffering in Atlas and in chapter 71 she succeeds and now Summer's adopted daughters Yang and Cinder want revenge on her.
• Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Yang desperately wants to believe Raven did in fact have such a reason, encouraged by Natsu's own belief Igneel had a reason (which he did). She decides Raven's reasoning wasn't a good one, but also believes Summer's (she couldn't come back without setting off a Reality-Breaking Paradox) to be, which is the catalyst that Yang needs to join Salem's side.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • On the RWBY side of things: Jacques, Willow, Ironwood, Harriet, Elm, Vine and Pietro are all killed around the fic's equivalent of Volume 4, all consequences of the Gates' intent of conquering Atlas for Salem. The entire Branwen Tribe also bites it courtesy of End during the events of Volume 5.
  • On the Fairy Tail side: With the exception of the Strongest Team, all of the Fairy Tail guild is dead, either dying in the battle with the White Witch, or succumbing to old age. Same applies to pretty much the entire Fairy Tail cast, the only initial exceptions being the Celestial Spirits.
    • Subverted later on for Juvia and Jellal. While both were initially believed to have died in the battle with the White Witch, Ruby noticed that Juvia didn't actually have a gravestone. When she went back in time, she was initially confused why a Reality Breaking Parodox didn't occur until she attempted to leave, upon which she realized it was a Stable Time Loop, and she was meant to bring Juvia and Jellal back with her to the maintain the loop, Mest having to use his magic on the others, Loke included, to make sure a paradox wouldn't occur, only letting Mira keep her memories since she would survive the war and interact with Sitara.
• Democracy Is Flawed: Esper Rosenflos is of this opinion, stating that while the goals of democracy are noble and do work sometimes in being superior to dictatorship, even at its best it has far too many flaws for the current times they're in such as the inability to muster swift responses, always a danger when the Grimm are concerned but all the more dangerous in Remnant's current climate.
  • Salem also seems to have a pretty dismissive attitude towards democracy simply seeing it as a system where it's easier for Ozpin to maintain control no matter who he reincarnates into as well as making it more challenging for her to take over.
  • Harriet believes that if democracy opens the door to Salem, then Atlas is better off without it. Subverted when the Ace Ops' attempt to remove democracy play a vital role in Salem gaining control over Atlas, with Teacher and Watts leading it from behind the scenes with Ironwood's reanimated corpse.
• Demon Slaying: Yang is a Devil Slayer like Gray meaning her fire magic is very effective against Demons. That being said she has a pretty poor track record when fighting actual Demons suffering two separate Curb Stomps against both End and Kyoka. She does better against the half demon Mercury though she is still no match and would have lost if she didn't get help from both Blake and Ren.
• Demoted to Extra: In canon Adam Taurus serves as one of the main antagonists of Volume's 3, 5 and 6 and is the archenemy of two members of Team RWBY, Yang and Blake and serves as the final boss of the latter Volume. Here he is something of a Big Bad Wannabe suffering multiple Curb Stomps from Blake, Hazel and Weiss before being unceremoniously killed by Eleanor Tremaine and raised as a zombie soldier by Watts.
• The Determinator: Both Happy and Tyrian are able to overcome the enormous pain of the Ascension process out of sheer devotion to Natsu and Salem respectively.
• Didn't See That Coming: End's plans for Salem hit a massive snag when Erza Scarlet joins the fray, since no one on Salem's side knew she was even freed from her Fairy Sphere yet, and when Lucy and Blake arrive for a Big Damn Heroes moment, which sends Happy into a panic because he knows End wants to kill Lucy and will probably throw everything else to the wayside when he realizes she's here. Sure enough, End loses it and nearly burns down Haven Academy himself in a fury, but he recovers and orders the retreat after sensing Cinder's disappearance and the loss of the Relic, noting they've done all they can and it's up to Summer to finish the clean-up (though he gets the consolidation prizes of both Jaune and Yang).
• Didn't Think This Through: Weiss did not think of the full implications of killing Summer and now has to deal with both Yang and Cinder wanting her dead.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Adam Taurus, compared to his canon death where he killed by Blake and Yang at the end of their fight in Volume 6, dies shot in the head and helpless by Eleanor Tremaine in Atlas after being detained by Weiss in Volume 4. Fria also dies much earlier, but instead of giving up her Winter Maiden powers to Penny she has them taken willingly by COMMAND ESR. Vernal dies not by Cinder's hands, but as collateral of End nuking the Branwen tribe off the face of the earth.
• Dirty Business: The events of Godmother's Haven was this for Atlas Intelligence, to the point even Eleanor Tremaine, resident Well-Intentioned Extremist willing to do just about anything for Atlas' security, doesn't consider it "good work" despite it having saved millions of lives. And considering she had to kill her husband, an incredibly influential and well-beloved man of Mistral — who she seemingly really did care about outside of the mission — when he found out about it, it makes sense.
• Dirty Coward: End's opinion of Raven. Yang can't bring herself to disagree when she sees how scared shitless of End Raven is to the point that when the chips were down, Raven chose to escape through a portal rather than try and save Yang when End stopped her from getting to her. Raven's point-of-view, however, shows it's not that simple considering the fact she and Lionheart used the Relic of Knowledge to try and find a way to defeat Salem, only to learn about her immortality, and when she tried to warn Summer about this, it just led to Summer running off to fight Salem and getting a fist through her chest.
  • Leo as per canon is this as a result Salem and most of her followers regard him with contempt with only Summer showing concern for her old friend.
• Discard and Draw: Pyrrha after getting her weapons destroyed by Cinder during the Fall of Beacon and having her leg badly wounded decides she can't rely on her old fighting style in the future due to the amount of time it would take to fully recover while Salem's forces grow stronger and decides to build on a new one based around using both her Semblance and her newly unlocked magic, effectively going from a Magic Knight to a Kung-Fu Wizard.
• Ditto Fighter: Emerald who has the Gemini Twins power is this. When she turns into Yang she not only looks just like her but also has access to Fire Devil Slayer powers. This combined with the fact that she has the enormous magical/curse reserves of a Gate makes her extremely dangerous with Ruby immediately sending Ren away from her out of fear that she could get access to his Crash Magic.
• Divide and Conquer: What Ozpin and Qrow claim that Salem like in canon uses to defeat her enemies. In reality however Ozpin is lying and Salem's actual goal is to unite mankind under her leadership to defeat the Brothers and destroy the Grimm.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": End hates being called Natsu. He is however mature enough to understand why people who knew Natsu would call him that and generally only growls a bit before correcting them. However when Lucy calls him Natsu he completely loses it.
  • Oscar also makes his identity clear. When End states that he is Ozpin, Oscar angrily retorts that while Ozpin may be in his head he is not him.
• Don't Make Me Destroy You: Said word for word by Drizella when she and her mother team up to fight her old friend Winter.
• The Dragon: End more then any other of her followers is this for Salem. He has been serving her for 50 years and is her most trusted subordinate and closest friend in addition to being the most powerful being on her side. Salem sends him to take care of anyone who the Gates cannot handle themselves. He is shown to be completely loyal to her and is happy with his job viewing helping Salem achieve her goals as his purpose.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Sage and Scarlet think Sun more than likely died at the Fall of Beacon since he wasn't on any of the airships after he helped out Blake. Neither are aware though that Sun is still alive, albeit a little banged up, it's just he's in Menagerie recovering still, unable to join Blake at Haven this time around, hence SSN going to Atlas rather than Vacuo like in canon.
  • Yang's plan to use Raven's Semblance through their kindred link to get the heroes straight into the heart of Salem's fortress in the Grimmlands is actually not that bad...but unbeknownst to her and everyone on the good guy side, Salem's faction knows exactly how it works because Summer is on their side. It turns out Salem has a magical barrier around her castle which interferes with spatial distortions like Raven's semblance. It doesn't stop them but Raven has difficulty getting to where she wants to go.
• The Dreaded: The Ophiuchus, End. Qrow, Raven, and Ozpin are all terrified of him, with the latter claiming he could burn down Mistral if he so chose. His own allies are aware of how destructive his powers can be and tend to grow alarmed when he loses his temper including his friends like Happy and Hazel. The only one who doesn't seem to have some fear of End is Salem.
  • While far kinder and more sympathetic than canon, Salem can still be extremely menacing at times. Mard Geer, one of the greatest enemies Fairy Tail ever encountered, was terrified of her. Both Raven and Leo abandoned Ozpin's side upon learning of her immortality. Even her own followers are somewhat intimidated by her despite her Benevolent Boss tendencies.
  • The Umbral Spirit King is this, with End and Salem, who are by far the two most powerful beings on Remnant, fearing what he could do if he manifested on Remnant.
  • Summer becomes this for Erza of all people once the two start to talk. While she isn't as powerful as either Salem or End, her sheer conviction terrifies Erza as it reminds her far too much of herself. Carla, Raven and Penny also greatly fear her as well with the latter backing down when Gate of the Maiden makes it clear that she will be leaving and that Penny will lose any fight she starts.
• Easily Forgiven: Discussed between Gray and Weiss when he tells her about Ultear, her actions against the guild and the world at large, and her eventual Heel–Face Turn and Heroic Sacrifice. Weiss is skeptical when he admits he forgave her for all that she did even if she really was sorry, but Gray tells her that forgiveness is personal and he did it because he wanted to, irrelevant of the question of "justice". He also tells her it's the same with her and her father, and when she tells him she can't forgive him he encourages her not to as long as that's what she believes and wants.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones:
  • Cinder, for all her narcissism and disdain for forming friendships with Mercury and Emerald, does love her "Teacher," and the death of her beloved father Benjamin Autumn is partly why she is so twisted now. To this day, Cinder still loves her father enough to visit his grave in Mistral despite being ordered by Salem and End to stay hidden at Haven.
  • Jacques Schnee is a reprehensible excuse for a human being, but Weiss notes the grief in his voice when he talks about Benjamin Autumn and his death during Operation Godmother's Haven is genuine and realizes Jacques truly did consider the late Mistalian councilman a friend.
  • "Evil" is really a stretch, but Happy still very much cares about his Fairy Tail comrades. The only reason he survived the demonization process when the other known survivors were Hazel and Tyrian was because he was that determined to survive for Natsu's sake. He also has a major Oh, Crap! moment when he sees Lucy at the Battle of Haven, not because he's scared for himself but because he's scared for her since End wants to kill her. As the battle winds down, he even has a soliloquy to Wendy's unconscious body (unknowing of Irene's presence) about how things keep going tits-up but he's gonna keep trying for his friend's sake.
  • "Teacher", in addition to caring for Cinder, legitimately does care about Whitley and Winter. That won't stop Esper from manipulating either of them, but in her mind it's for the greater good and she does feel bad about it. She was noticeably pissed when she was forced to wound Whitley to salvage her plan after Watts blew up the Schnee Manor early, and despite Winter declaring her hatred for her and preventing her from catching Weiss and Gray, Esper still doesn't kill her and in fact attacks Watts when he muses on experimenting with her after she's imprisoned.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Hazel is absolutely disgusted by Adam's attempted coup on Sienna and steps in to protect her. He then even offers her the spot among Salem's Gates that Adam was being considered for.
  • Sienna herself also counts. Though she freely considers violence the only option for the Faunus to achieve their equality, she draws the line at attacking the Huntsmen Academies since it only reinforces the public image as villains and it only weakens everyone in the fight against the Grimm, preferring to keep it their violence aimed at obviously unjust businesses and institutions to maintain public sympathy. While she agrees to lend White Fang troops to the sacking of Haven Academy after allying with Salem, it's only after it's confirmed Salem's intent is to retrieve the Relic of Knowledge rather than the destruction of the academy itself, along with the fact Lionheart will have emptied the place of students and faculty to prevent unnecessary deaths that would reflect badly upon them.
  • Salem. She is similarly disgusted by Adam's actions towards Sienna and she sees betrayal of one's allies for something as petty as personal power to be utterly reprehensible.
  • Adam may be abusive, power-hungry, and dangerously delusional, but even he is horrified when he sees Blake turn into a mad Grimm-hybrid and believes she's been experimented on and turned into a monster, determined to give her a Mercy Kill.
  • Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury usually have Teeth-Clenched Teamwork even after Salem and Teacher encourage Cinder to stop treating them like lackeys and see them as equals or even friends, but when Watts makes a rather rude crack at Mercury's missing legs, both Emerald and (to her own surprise) Cinder can't help but bristle in sympathy at how callous it was and how noticeably angry Mercury got at it.
• Evil Counterpart: Esper Rosenflos/Summer Rose to Ruby, lampshaded by the author. The two of them have the best intentions for Remnant at heart, are prone to adopting others as members of their family, are natural and charismatic leaders, are determined to the right thing and don't let anyone stop them from doing it. But Summer is no longer as hopeful as her daughter and since siding with Salem, the positive qualities that she shares with Ruby have been tainted by a ruthless pragmatism that has allowed her to ruin the lives Weiss and Winter and frame both of them for terrorism, orchestrate the death of Ironwood and drag his reputation through the mud as tyrant, and become the dictator of Atlas all while pulling the wool over the citizens' eyes and masking her allegiance to the Queen of the Grimm. She is as formidable and terrifying an adversary as one would expect from an evil version of Ruby.
  • The Umbral Spirit King is the counterpart of the Celestial Spirit King as was created by the God of Darkness Seram while the Celestial King was created by the God of Light Ankh. While the Celestial Spirt King is kind, friendly, cares for his people and doesn't hesitate to call his creator out for his mistakes and cruelty, the Umbral Spirit King is vicious, sadistic fanatically devoted to Seram and happily acts as his and Ankhserams attack dog.
  • The Grimm's true identity in this story are Umbral Spirits the dark counterparts of the Celestial Spirts. Its unknown what Umbral Spirits are like when not infected by Seram's madness but it is shown that they willingly subject themselves to it in order to kill humans as Seram commanded them. The Celestial Spirits by contrast are shown to care for humans and were horrified when the Brothers killed almost all of them.
• Evil Gloating: Watts one of the crueler and more amoral members of Salem's faction is fond of this much to his partner Summers exasperation. This is actually a big weakness as he tends to not only give important information to enemies but also not notice smaller details while he does it. According to Pietro, this has always been a flaw of Watts.
• Evil Mentor: End tries to be this to Yang during their "fight" by pointing out the flaws in how she uses her magic and telling her how to improve. Though he doesn't really have any sinister intentions with Yang and is sincere in his desire to help her.
• Face–Heel Turn: Played with in that the fic is deliberately ambiguous about just how "evil" Salem's faction really is as a whole ignoring individual members, as Salem is certainly a much more heroic character than in her canon.
  • Natsu (as End), Happy, and Summer Rose are all among Salem's greatest warriors.
  • Though the why isn't clear until Chapter 55, it turns out all of the Zodiac Spirits aside from Leo and Ophiuchus have willingly joined Salem's crusade.
  • In Chapter 71, Yang's Trauma Conga Line throughout the story combines with Summer being killed by Weiss right before her eyes in a Heroic Sacrifice to save Ruby to send her completely over the edge, destroying her faith in her friends and sending her on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Weiss that she's more than willing to go through other former allies like Blake and Juvia to accomplish.
• Facial Horror: Drizzella Tremaine has a noticeable scar running down the left side of her face and eye. She got it courtesy of her furious step-sister Ella Autumn, now know as Cinder Fall, some time after the murder of her father at Eleanor's hands.
• False Friend:
  • Zigzagged. Esper/ Summer actually did consider Ironwood her friend. Though Winter states despite this she ruined his reputation and caused his death all while manipulating him.
  • Zigzagged also with End towards Yang, which definitely are partially influenced by his memories and feeling towards her from Natsu. His actions and Word of God makes it clear he really does want to be friends with her by helping her through her personal problems and training her. At the same time, Yang isn't exactly appreciative of his methods.
• False Flag Operation: During the Great War, Vale was losing against the combined assault of Mantle and Mistral. Ozpin, who was the King of Vale at the time, went to Salem and begged for her help. She accepted and was able to use this to trick Vacuo into thinking Mantle and Mistral were planning to invade them and they joined the war on Vale's side. Jaune notes that Remnant's history books said that Mantle and Mistral attacked in earnest, to which Salem reminds them that history is Written by the Winners.
• Fatal Flaw: For Cinder, she does not always think of the long-term implications of her actions. Other than acquiring the Fall Maiden Powers and freeing Wendy, the Fall of Beacon didn't accomplish much for Salem. Ozpin reincarnated into a body that could hold far more magical power than his old one, Cinder was unable to acquire the Relic of Choice or capture Wendy, and the whole event made recruiting Team RWBY and other Fairy Tail Wizards much more difficult. Not to mention Salem's goal of uniting the world under Atlas's leadership was made more difficult by Cinder causing Atlas Robots to attack everyone in sight. It also ruined Summer's initial plans for the takeover of Atlas forcing her to move much faster than she planned. She later shows the same problem in the Battle of Haven, where she ruins End's plan to defeat Ruby's team by her attack on Raven. Had she stuck with End's plan he would have knocked out all of Ruby's team and she would have been able to acquire the Spring Maiden powers at her leisure. Instead' she charged in and allowed Ruby and her friends to separate End from the others which eventually resulted in them gaining the Relic.
• Feeling Their Age:
  • This is the case for Mard Geer Tartaros. He was far more powerful 300 years ago where he was a match for Ozma in his prime, who is touted as one of the most powerful Wizards to have ever lived and destroyed most of Zeref's demons. That said, he was also far more brash and emotional than the cool-headed tactician who led Tartaros by the time of Fairy Tail canon. Also, his ultimate Curse, Memento Mori, had not been perfected, allowing Ozma to counter it, and even if he hadn't, the most it would've done is temporarily paralyze him.
  • Winter notes this is the case for Eleanor Tremaine as they fight each other, noting that Eleanor is nearly unparalleled as a fighter in training and skill, but the simple inescapable fact is that Eleanor is old and her body just lacks the stamina and ability she had in her prime. Against most foes, it's not that much of an issue, but Winter is in her own prime and has had some of the best training available, allowing her to overwhelm the agent and she would have achieved victory if not for Driz's intervention to help her mother.
• Feel No Pain: Hazel's semblance like in canon allows him to not feel any physical pain. It's what allows him to become a Gate before Watts perfected the Neo-Hells Core. The Core would cause the candidate so much pain that they would go insane or die but Hazel doesn't have to worry about that. He later uses it to catch an attack from Adam's sword with his bare hand and not even flinch.
• Fight Off the Kryptonite: End is so powerful he can eat Yang's Fire Devil Slayer Magic, though he admits he doesn't actually get any benefit from devouring it and it still hurts him, and he also admits he shouldn't actually push his luck trying to do it in a real fight since the flames he ate to help Shay D. Mann weren't even serious and they still caused discomfort.
  • Salem does have a certain vulnerability to Spirit Slayer magic (in fact Ozpin's original rough draft for defeating her was based off that) however when Summer uses her eyes to encases her in stone it only manages to immobilize her for less then a minute before she breaks out and mortally wounds the huntress. This may be explained by Salem also being part Etherious who have no vulnerability to Spirit Slayer type magic.
• Foreshadowing: It's mentioned by Carla that Transformation Magic is actually quite cost-effective and can be used proficiently even with the Ethernano-barren land of Remnant, which is why Ozpin taught Raven and Qrow it. It's the part of the reason why Esper could use it over a long period of time in her stint as COMMAND ESR.
• Foil: Salem is this to Zeref. They are both immensely powerful beings who were condemned cruelly by Ankhseram and cursed with immortality and who both want to die. However, Salem is eventually able to overcome her desire for suicide with her friends' help and rebels against the ones who have cursed her. In addition, while Zeref was somewhat friendly towards some of his followers, he ultimately treated them as game pieces and would kill them if they displeased or disappointed him while Salem is a genuine Benevolent Boss who cares for her followers as people rather than pieces. Finally, Zeref believed that Humans Are Bastards and that he needed to go back to the past to change that while Salem has a mostly Humans Are Flawed approach and thinks that her plan will help bring out the better parts of humanity which she witnessed in her friends.
  • Summer is this to canon Ironwood as they are both former members of Ozpin's circle who end up becoming dictators of Atlas and who consider their emotions a weakness. However while Ironwood typically relied on brute force methods which usually blew up in his face, Summer relies more on her cunning and has achieved the most success of any of Salem's circle so far. This is most prominently shown in their methods of gaining control of Atlas. While Ironwood essentially declared himself dictator and eventually alienated even his most loyal supporters, Summer manipulates events so that she is elected dictator to popular acclaim. Also while Ironwood showed almost no concern how people perceived him and was hated in Mantle, Summer carefully managed her PR and is a beloved figure in both Atlas and Mantle. Finally, while Ironwood had a Never My Fault tendency and saw himself as a Hero with Bad Publicity, Summer takes responsibility for everything, even things she arguably at least wasn't directly at fault for, and views herself as a Neccessary Evil.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • Cinder's obsession with power is fueled by how her entire life was thrown upside-down by events outside of her control. Her father, Benjamin Autumn was assassinated by her step-mother, Eleanor Tremaine when he caught on to how she was using him for Atlas Intelligence to stop Mistral from going to war with Menagerie and simultaneously gain political and economic control in both realms. Then she was forcibly taken back to Atlas where Eleanor subjected her to brutal and abusive training to turn into a killer loyal to the kingdom. Then something happened to her on her first mission which caused her to be declared KIA, and eventually led to her falling in with Salem.
  • Mercury's can be traced back to his father's Training from Hell, which has led him to adopt an arrogant and prideful view that insists he needs to get stronger to avoid being taking advantage of by others who have things he doesn't (like a Semblance or legs). It's why he's downright eager to accept the demonization process after his loss to Yang who — in his mind — has not suffered nearly as much for her power as he has; even after being told the transformation and magic won't give him back his legs or bring him peace, claiming there's "no such thing."
  • Raven's is rooted in learning the Awful Truth about Salem's immortality that broke her faith in Ozpin, and then watching her best friend Summer die fighting Salem. This prompted her to lie and push all her loved ones away, burning bridges with them.
• Friendly Enemy: End is this to most of the Fairy Tail Wizards especially Yang and Jaune. He is usually quite polite and pleasant to them and doesn't hesitate to praise them when they do something impressive. The exception to this rule is Lucy who he loathes and would very much like to kill.
  • Salem is also this especially since she doesn't actually view Fairy Tail as her enemies but as her old friends who she wants on her side. Quite a few people on the Fairy Tail side don't return this sentiment especially Gray and Weiss.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Cinder is this to Salem's inner circle with only Emerald and Summer, her foster mother really liking her. Hazel, End, Happy and Sienna all view her as a theatrical child who causes far too much collateral damage. Watts and Tyrian look down on her as someone who puts her desire ahead of her duty to Salem. Salem herself initially thinks better of the Fall Maiden, but eventually loses her patience with Cinder's antics and both harshly reprimands her and refuses to let Cinder regain the Maiden powers after the Haven fight when Cinder cost her side the Relic of Knowledge.
  • Raven is this for the Fairy Tail Team. Between abandoning her family and friends and spending years as a bandit pillaging Anima no one is happy with her. Her saving Erza and Pyrrha from Cinder did earn her some points with the former though.
• Fusion Dance: This is what Salem's plan is. By having humanity and the Celestials become one, and use the new power to kill the Brother Gods and take over as the new lead race. Many are conflicted by this plan.
  • Both God of Light and Dark also merged as one, and while they de-fused and declared it off-limits, Salem and Ozma both admit that form was even stronger than both individually.
• Genre Blindness: The Ace Ops and the Specialist Corps in general show this. Ironwood is the victim of a bombing attack and reported to be in critical condition. Then soon afterwards he shows up at the Specialists barracks with only minor burns and declares that they need to launch a military coup. Then when marching into the Council chambers none of the Knights on guard make any attempt to stop the armed soldiers barging into said chambers. Other then Vine none of the Ace Ops find anything odd about the whole situation when its extremely obvious to the readers that they are being set up. What makes it worse is that the Ace Ops know about Salem and magic. Sadly given their infamous Blind Obedience this is perfectly in character for them.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: Salem is the firm hand to Summer's gentle touch in their treatment of Cinder. Salem has little patience for Cinder's ego and recklessness and doesn't hesitate to berate her for her failures, while Summer uses positive reinforcement and kindness to get through to her.
• The Gift:
  • Pyrrha as per canon. Not only is she is a prodigious huntress, but she also has an unusually large Origin, allowing her to learn magic at a pace that would be considered prodigious even on Earthland. This is to be expected, as her mother is Erza Scarlet, and her father is all but confirmed to be Jellal Fernandes.
  • Oscar has the potential to reach this point too. Ozpin knows this because his curse causes him to bond to people with the largest-sized Origins available at the time of his current incarnation's death (and even then he had to resort to such techniques as Second and Third Origin to give many of his new incarnations anything resembling a decent magic supply). He specifically claims Oscar has the largest Origin of the current era that doesn't belong to a Silver-Eyed Warrior or isn't artificially augmented and thus has the potential to utilize magic that Ozpin hasn't been able to wield or at least use to its full potential for many lifetimes due to lack of fuel.
  • Summer Rose was this back in her day, with Ozpin saying that she was even more talented than Pyrrha at same age. This hasn't changed after falling in with Salem, with her being among the strongest of Salem's gates and effectively her second-in-command due to her skill, intelligence, and natural leadership capabilities.
  • Jaune of all people appears to have it as well. Ozpin/Ozma notes that despite being completely hopeless when he started at Beacon, within a single semester he became skilled enough to compete in the Vytal Festival, and even learned magic as well. This prompts Ozpin to teach Jaune the Shield of Memory.
• Good Stepmother: Summer may consider herself a monster but her two adopted kids Yang and Cinder both think the world of her and they both tell her that she is better person then she considers herself to be. So when Weiss finally succeeds in killing her, they both swear they'll kill Weiss, Yang even willing to do the same to Blake for defending Weiss.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: According to Ozpin, most people who learn the truth about Salem's immortality tend to do this, either switching to her side or burning down entire kingdoms in despair. By comparison, Raven running off to play bandit queen is actually one of the better reactions.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • Mard Geer Tartaros. He was at least partially responsible for Salem's creation. He originally kidnapped Salem — then known as Sitara, the daughter of the Celestial Spirit King, — locked her away and tried to corrupt her into a demon that would be loyal to Zeref. This prompted Ozma to take on the quest to save her. But by the time he got there and freed her after a hard-fought battle with Mard Geer, she was already partially corrupted into what she is now.
  • Zeref Dragneel. He was the creator of Mard Geer Tartaros, who kidnapped and corrupted Sitara in Zeref's name, which eventually led to her becoming Salem who has been terrorizing Remnant for centuries. Salem then began using the Curses from Zeref's books for her own agenda. All of Remnant's problems could thus be traced back to Zeref.
  • The Umbral Spirit King. He is the king of the Grimm and stands as the greatest danger to Remnant. Everyone on both Salem and Fairy Tails sides fear that him arriving on Remnant would mean the destruction of mankind.
  • The Brothers, Ankh and Seram. They were the ones who destroyed Earth Land and turned the world into the wasteland that is Remnant. Seram sent the Grimm to torment mankind and the Umbral Spirit King is his The Dragon.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: The war between Salem and Ozpin is this with Ozpin having good reasons to fear that Remnant will be destroyed if Salem wins and Salem having good reasons to fear that it will be destroyed if she doesn't. Fairy Tails arrival doesn't change that with both sides having compelling reasons for their actions. Notably Grey Morality is something Fairy Tail has never dealt with before as they are used to fighting the likes of Mard Geer and Acnologia and are clearly struggling dealing with opponents who make several compelling points about their actions with some members at times wondering if they are the ones in the right.
• Hated by All: The Brothers and Ahkseram are this being universally despised by everyone who finds out the truth. The only beings who don't hate them are the White Witch and the Umbral Spirt King and they both are only devoted to one brother and hate the other. Even the Celestial Spirits who at one point worshipped Ankh have grown to hate him and Seram after the destruction of Earthland. It says a lot that no one objects to the idea of of killing them only if it can be done or what would happen to the Celestial Spirits if it did.
  • Jacques Schnee is hated by pretty much all the characters who know of him in this story. Summer expresses zero regrets in regards to his death, none of his family mourn him when he is killed and Salem uses him as an example as to the problems with humanity.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Pietro, facing down Watts and realizing that the man before him is more monster than human, sends Penny a message to not try and save him, knowing she will only be killed. He instead tell her that the Atlas government is compromised, and to seek out her friends before Watts shoots him.
  • Winter pulls one in Chapter 32 and allows herself to be captured by Esper/Summer, Salem's Gate of the Maiden to buy time for Weiss, Gray, and Penny to flee Atlas with their lives.
  • Summer uses Macro to send Ruby out of the way of Weiss's attack sacrificing her own chance to avoid it which results in her being mortally wounded and dying shortly afterwards.
• Heroic Willpower: Salem has this. As a result of plunging into a Grimm pool she was made part Umbral Spirit meaning she has to constantly deal with voices in her head telling her to kill everything in sight. She is fully capable of not only resisting these commands but in actually making nearby Grimm not obey them either. She only loses control when extremely angry and even then it only lasts for a short period of time before she regains command of her senses. Blake by contrast can only direct the urge to destroy towards her enemies and is amazed at Salem's willpower.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Like in Fairy Tail canon, Devil Slayers run the risk of this due to their magic. Gray has long since gotten his under control as per canon. Yang, however, seems to be diving headfirst off the slope as she taps deeper into her powers and doesn't take certain personal revelations about her loved ones well with no time to healthily process them. She solidifies it when Weiss kills Summer, attempting to actually kill Weiss, and threatening to do the same to Blake if she gets in her way. She proves serious when she nearly caves Weiss' skull in were it not for Blake.
• Hold the Line: As it turns out, it was Salem who held off Acnologia when Irene's Universe One was active, and while the most she could do was act as a punching bag since none of her magic was any threat to him, she was still an immortal punching bag able to keep up with his attacks. It should be noted that Salem fought Acnologia for 30 minutes straight, while even Zeref refused to confront him without first absorbing Fairy Heart.
  • At the battle at Haven Academy, no one on Fairy Tail's side has any illusion that they have a chance at beating End so Jaune and later Wendy's job is to keep him away from the other Wizards while they fight the Gates. It works reasonably well though while End does ultimately defeat both of them by that time Mercury is killed, Cinder trapped and the Relic of Knowledge is removed from play and the imminent arrival of Atlas soldiers forces Salem's crew to retreat to avoid getting caught in the middle of their fight with the White Fang.
• Honorary Uncle: Gray has become this for Pyrrha, who is Erza's his essential foster sister's daughter. While he is a bit awkward about it he has stated that he is ok being called uncle.
• Hope Spot: Raven and Summer had one when the latter used her Silver Eyes to imprison Salem in stone. For a moment, it really looked like Summer had succeeded and it would just be a matter of taking Salem to Ozpin...and then not only do End, Hazel and Happy show up, Salem bursts out and in a furious rage punches a hole right through Summer's chest that fatally wounds her, shattering Raven's faith that Salem can be stopped and being the catalyst that leads to Summer's resurrection as a Gate and ultimately choosing to side with Salem.
• Hopeless War: Ozpins war with Salem is even more hopeless then in canon. Salem is this universe in addition to having her canon selfs Complete Immortality is also one of the most powerful magical wielders of all time who Ozpin even at the height of his power was outmatched by. Whats more she has End the mightiest of all the Etherious on her side in additon to the Gates a team of One Man Armies. By contrast all Ozpin has on his side at the start of the story are some skilled huntsmen. Fairy Tail's arrival did help improve Ozpin's situation but Salem still holds a decisive advantage.
• Humans Are Flawed: Salem, despite sincerely attempting to save mankind, does not have a very high opinion of most humans. After she gained the ability to influence the Grimm, she attempted to set up safe zones from them only for the humans she was trying to protect to attack her simply because of her frightening appearance. She later refers to most humans as the idiotic masses and believes that they can't be trusted with the truth or to save themselves. This is Salem and her Faction's main argument for wanting to take over the world and forcing humans to become Eclipse Etherious as they don't believe that most of them would ever do so willingly. Neither Ozpin or Loke disagree with Salem's assessment of humanity and even the ever optimistic Ruby cant come up with a counterargument.
• Humiliation Conga: Cinder gets hit with this hard during the Battle of Haven. Despite her increase in power, she finds herself matched by Pyrrha and Raven, and when she manages to beat them she gets attacked by Erza Scarlet before ending up locked inside the Vault of the Spring Maiden, which is a pocket dimension of endless desert and scorching sun where time flows so differently that she spent what felt like years suffering and long past the point a normal person would have died from exposure, thirst or hunger. She's forced to commit suicide to escape not even entirely certain if she'll make it back to Hell's Core via immolation from her own hated Spirit Slayer Magic, and she loses the Fall Maiden powers she coveted and gives them to Emerald. And Salem, not pleased by her current record, makes it clear she has no intention of letting Emerald die to give those Maiden powers back.
• Hybrid Power: Anyone who becomes a Gate becomes half Demon and half Celestial Spirit. They gain the powers that both the spirt and the demon have and thanks to the immense magical/curse reserves they get as a result means that they are far stronger then either.
  • Salem is a three way Hybrid. She started off as a Celestial Spirt. After being kidnapped and experimented on by Mard Geer she becomes part Etherious and after jumping into a Grimm Pit she becomes part Umbral Spirit. This gives her access to a wide variety of different powers.
• Hypocrite: Ankh the God of Light declares that humanity must learn to live in harmony with each other if they are to be seen as redeemed by him when he and his brother Seram have never been able to live in harmony and have destroyed entire worlds with their squabbles.
• I Am a Monster:
  • Blake views herself as this due to clawing off Yang's arm when she lost control over Full-Body Takeover: Grimm Soul and also later almost killing her mother with it. Considering Blake's already present self-loathing issues that had only partially been mended by her time in Fairy Tail, it hasn't done wonders for her mental health.
  • Summer has long considered herself to be a monster after joining Salem's cause. But she also feels only a monster can save the world as it is.
• Immortal Breaker: End is this, as Zeref intended. Salem was amazed to see that his flames during their original battle could legitimately leave lasting wounds that wouldn't heal, and if End hadn't been fighting in a berserk and confused state he might have even succeeded in defeating her.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: During her infiltration of Castle Evernight Summer manages to encase Salem in stone when she is distracted by Summer's similar appearance to Ruby. Enraged by this as well as disappointed that Summer isn't Ruby Seram's madness is triggered resulting in Salem bursting out of the statue and punching a hole straight through Summers chest and her remaining aura.
• Implacable Woman: Salem much like in canon is virtually unstoppable thanks to her immorality and high speed regeneration. Stabbings, beheading even having her body torn to pieces by Crash Magic none of this really does anything to impede her. The only things that have affected her is End's Fire and Spirt Slayer Magic and the latter only for a short time.
• An Ice Person:
  • Weiss's magic is Ice God Slayer Magic, which manifests as black ice.
  • And of course, there's Gray with his own Ice-Make and Ice Devil Slayer Magic.
  • Salem also has access to Ice Magic which she notes to be stronger then the Maidens.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Winter gets drunk in a bar on whiskey after learning from Weiss about magic and having her world-view shattered (and more importantly, understanding that there are threats coming after Weiss for that power, all of this is classified, she can't talk to most people about it, and what people she can talk about it to won't or can't tell her everything). Qrow is sympathetic, noting that he, Raven and even Summer (who never drank) all hit up a bar after Ozpin told them the hidden truths of entering his inner circle, but ultimately the drinking doesn't help nearly as much as talking.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: Quite ironically considering the Running Gag of her failing to deliberately use her sex appeal to woo people for distraction in the original manga, Lucy ends up playing this role upon awakening in Remnant to the Faunus in Mengagerie, distracting them from the process of repairing the damage done by the fight with Tyrian without realizing it. Ilia even admits she's hot, though she tries to cover it up with "for a human."
• In Spite of a Nail:
  • Despite Team RWBY possessing magic, they can't stop the Fall of Beacon and at best just manage smaller victories that mitigate the death toll such as Pyrrha's survival, and Yang still loses her arm though to a berserk Blake in Grimm Take-Over rather than Adam's blade. Nor does this stop Team RWBY from being forced to split up in the aftermath though Blake this time doesn't run away and actually talks with Ruby and Yang before leaving for Menagerie to train her powers, Yang is left with a better mental state and ready to commit to training earlier to get back in the game faster, and Ruby is even more determined to stop Salem than before with Qrow, Wendy, Carla and Team JNR, training the latter three in their magic as they head off while Pyrrha has already been taken back to Mistral to recover from her injuries and train herself.
  • Just like the end of her arc in the canonical Volume 4, Weiss escapes Atlas on an aircraft, although her circumstances are simultaneously better (accompanied by Gray and Penny rather than alone) and so much worse (she's leaving a proclaimed terrorist with a badly-injured Gray while her friends, family, and allies in Atlas are all dead, imprisoned, or think she's a terrorist).
  • The Battle of Haven ends more or less the same way as canon, with the heroes managing to get the Relic of Knowledge, Cinder's defeat, and the White Fang effectively dissolved as a threat. The differences are that Mercury dies (though being a demon and with Hell's Core, this isn't an inconvenience any long-term trauma notwithstanding), Lionheart lives thanks to Summer's mercy, Cinder is instead locked inside the Vault rather than sent to an Uncertain Doom, Raven choosing to stand with the heroes rather than run away, the "White Fang" merely being the extremist part Salem's faction sent to their deaths to serve their ends, and most significantly Jaune being captured by End and Yang going willingly to try and provide an quick route straight to Salem's fortress via Raven's Semblance (while also wanting more answers for herself).
• Invincible Villain: Salem and End are seen as this though Well-Intentioned Extremist is more accurate then villain. Both of them are regarded by many who know of them as unbeatable and Raven even laughs at that the very idea of beating them. After seeing him in action at Haven Wendy doubts that even if she, Erza, Gray, and Lucy were to all gain semblances they still couldn't defeat End alone. Erza who is generally fearless admits that trying to take on Salem and End at once would not end well for them. No one has any idea how they can be defeated with Gray's suggestion of trying to put Natsu back in control of End's body being dismissed an impractical since he can just burn the enchantment.
• Irony:
  • Eleanor Tremaine kidnapped Ella Autumn and subjected her to highly abusive training to be a loyal killer for Atlas. Years later, she is a member of Salem's inner circle, the greatest the threat to Remnant, as Cinder Fall.
  • The person who inspired Salem to her original rebellion against the gods? Ruby Rose, who convinced her to stop trying to find a way to kill herself despite her immortality and seize the impossible.
  • For all of Cinder's obsession with power and desire to steal it from others, she absolutely refuses to use her own natural Spirit Slayer Magic due to all it has cost her personally, especially it's all but stated her father's life.
  • The extremely loud Nora whose fighting style is mostly brute force gets invisibility magic, while the quiet contemplative Ren gets the extremely destructive Crash Magic.
  • Many people on Fairy Tails side assumed that End was forcefully occupying Natsu's body when in reality it has in fact been Natsu who was unknowingly forcefully occupying End's body and that End has now regained control.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Both Blake and Sun blames themselves for Yang losing her arm. Blake for losing control of her Grimm transformation, and Sun because he and Neptune arrived just when Yang had seemingly calmed Blake down and fired on her. Yang herself notably doesn't blame either of them, as they were both trying to help her and didn't fully understand what was going on.
  • Raven at least partially blames herself for Summer's death, since warning her of Salem's immortality is part of what sent her running after Salem to defeat her, and she had a front-row seat to her apparent death.
• I Want Them Alive!: Salem wants Team RWBY alive because she intends to have them join her side and become Gate candidates; after all, they are/would become her friends in the past. It was the very reason she sent the book that sent them to Earthland in the first place.. She also gives orders for Wendy and Lucy to be brought to her alive as there abilities are vital to her plans. It's really the only reason they haven't been killed by the Gates or End yet given how badly outmatched they are. It's noted that both Tyrian and Teacher could have killed their respective opponents at any time if that had been their goal.
• Jerkass: Watts in this fic makes his canon self who's already an asshole look restrained. Not only does he insult his comrades when he feels they've performed less than admirably and has no issue throwing his former Kingdom into chaos in part because of a bruised ego, he happily murders his old colleague Pietro, raises the dead as self-aware zombies bound to his will that he abuses to show his superiority, and went so far as to go behind Teacher/[[spoiler: Summer's back to murder Klein and raise him as a zombie to carry out the Schnee Manor bombing himself (she had already controlled him with Macro, he was just convinced they were wasting time and forced her hand in causing it early) and cares not a whiff that he also killed Willow (who Teacher didn't want to kill) as a result of his disdain for waiting.
  • Harriet is arrogant, looks down on most huntsman as glorified mercenaries and shows Blind Obedience to Ironwood. The latter aspect leads to her and her teammates being easily duped by Watts and Teacher into being their puppets.
• Jerkass Gods:
  • Ankhseram: The curse of contradiction that he inflicted on Zeref and Mavis was incredibly cruel. He also heartlessly exiled Sitara from her home despite accepting that her being experimented on by Mard Geer was not her fault and forced her to chose between exile and being murdered by the Umbral Spirit King. Even the brothers accepted that he was a monster.
  • Seram: Extremely petty and vindictive he was prepared to flay Sitara alive and leave her in that state for decades, just for lying to him. He later obliterates almost all of mankind for the actions of a few. Upon learning of mankind's survival he sends his own people the Umbral Spirits to Remnant despite knowing that it will cost them their sanity and reason just to satisfy his petty vengeance.
  • Ankh: The least jerkish of them but still not a good guy. He tries to be benevolent but his actions almost always make things worse. He was the one who suggested the brothers merge to form Ankhseram, thus everything Zeref did can be traced back to Ankh. His curse of immortality to Sitara while genuine in his attempts to help her simply made her even more depressed and miserable and she spends the next few centuries trying to kill herself. He then refuses to try and stop Seram from wiping out most of mankind and rather then confronting his brother curses Ozma to an impossible mission to clean up his and his brothers messes and puts him on a collision course with the woman he loves.
• The Juggernaut: Hazel's already immense strength and endurance have skyrocketed thanks to having Taurus powers and he still has his Semblance which lets him ignore physical pain and his extremely resilient aura. If that wasnt enough he also has Tempesters elemental powers which he has fully mastered. All of this makes him a virtually unstoppable force as he offhandedly smashes falling boulders aside and is barely even inconvenienced by a point black Sky Dragon Roar by Wendy while she is in Dragon Force.
• Just the First Citizen: What Esper/Summer has become after taking emergency powers in Atlas, and lampshaded to hell and back between Robyn and Esper.
• Just Toying with Them: End treats his duel with Raven and Yang as this as neither of them pose any threat to him. Its what allows Raven to escape.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch: Subverted. Adam Taurus was a utter piece of work in life whose rap sheet includes being a bigot (albeit tragic), abusive, kill-happy, and treacherous, but by the end Weiss only felt sympathy for him when she saw his brand and how he was unceremoniously shot in the head by Eleanor. And then Watts raised him from the dead to make him an attack dog and has no problem brutally beating him to remind him he's nothing but a tool and puppet to be used by a human, an act that leads to Weiss demanding Watts to stop tormenting him. It's made clear by both Weiss and the narrative whatever Adam's sins in life don't justify what he's being forced to endure now.
  • End wiping out a whole Tribe sounds awful until you remember that the Brawnen Tribe were murderers and thieves who have been raiding villages killing innocents and leaving the survivors vulnerable to the Grimm. Needless to say only Raven and to a very limited extent Qrow are upset over their fate.
  • Salem's faction send Adams remaining followers to their deaths at Haven. This sounds horrible but they are Faunus supremacist zealots who would like to start a genocidal war with humanity and the Albain brothers are schemers who wanted to murder Blake's family so one of them could become chieftain as well as kill Ilia who they acknowledge has been a faithful ally to them.
• Kill Itwith Fire: End's fire powers are far superior to Natsu's even at his absolute best.
• Kill the God: Salem and the Twelve Celestials plan to do this to the Brother Gods. Believing it is justice for what they did to Earthland and humanity, they have made preparations to take them down and make a new humanity no matter the cost.
• Knight of Cerebus: The story takes after the darker parts of RWBY and Fairy Tail and when these characters show up, it becomes all the more prominent.
  • Though the Fall of Beacon still occurred, Team RWBY's training enabled them to mitigate the consequences with Pyrrha surviving and Yang and Blake being on much better terms. But when Happy appears in Chapters 26 & 27, he brings in a new wave of darkness by putting Ruby's group through a harrowing trial by fire, nearly killing Wendy and Jaune, and confirming the hope shattering truth that Remnant is the future of Earthland, a fact that throws Wendy into a Heroic BSoD in Chapter 30.
  • But he's nothing compared to The Ophiuchus and Teacher aka End and Summer Rose. While The Ophiuchus has yet to take action as of yet, the rest of Salem's circle hold immense fear for him, and his brief conversation incognito with Jaune and Ren unsettles both huntsmen. Teacher we only hear whispers of, with Salem's Circle holding more respect for her than fear, and Cinder adoring her as her mother figure. But when her machinations start to unfold, she completely outmanuvers Weiss and Gray and takes over Atlas, brands them as terrorists, and leaves Ironwood, Willow, Klein, Jacques, and half the Ace Ops dead. Her identity only makes it even more tragic.
• Kung-Fu Wizard:
  • Played Straight by Yang and Blake, since their magics are the most in-your-face physical combat. Yang even learned her new fighting style with Natsu, Fairy Tail's resident Kung-Fu Wizard extraordinaire.
  • Weiss can do this with her Ice God Slayer Magic, but she has a preference to fighting at a distance with it combined with Ice-Make. Subverted by Ruby, who can't channel her Spirit Slayer Magic into her body like the Yang and Weiss can their own Slayer types and thus is really not much better in hand-to-hand than she is canonically, but she can empower her weapons or ammunition with it.
  • Pyrrha after surviving the Fall of Beacon but still suffering from her leg wound and losing Milo and Akouo is forced to become this instead of the Magic Knight she used to be with the intent of fully mastering her Heavenly Body Magic.
• Lady of Black Magic: Like in canon Salem typically behaves in a calm, elegant, and polite manner. She is also one of the most powerful magical users in history who at one point was able to hold her own in a fight with Acnologia and is currently only rivaled by End in strength. Ironically her favorite form of sorcery appears to be light magic.
• Lack of Empathy: Yang after hearing the fully story of Cinders past shows zero sympathy for her simply stating that 'Horrible Shit happens to Everyone' and calls her worthless. Notably Mercury who both dislikes Cinder and isn't the most empathetic person himself is actually somewhat angry at Yang for this (much to his own surprise).
• Lastof His Kind: End is the only surviving full Etherious who was created by Zeref. Everyone else on Salem's faction is only part Etherious.
• Leeroy Jenkins:
  • Cinder. At the Battle of Haven, as soon as Raven is within her sights, Cinder initially follows End's orders and plan (while adding her own spin to it), but when Oscar intervenes and it looks like Raven will have a chance to escape as things start going Off the Rails she abandons her part in it and charges in, desperate to take Raven's Spring Maiden powers for herself.
  • Pyrrha. She's mostly composed at the Battle of Haven, until Cinder enters the fray and Pyrrha abandons all her group's previous planning to settle the score with woman that nearly killed her.
• Light 'em Up: While Salem has access to multiple forms of magic her preferred type to use appears to be light magic.
• Lightning Bruiser: Hazel when he activates his Eclipse Etherious Form and injects all of his dust into himself. Gray compares his speed to Laxus (who could literally turn into lightning) and his strength to a dragons (the most physically powerful creatures of Earthland).
• The Lost Lenore: Summer was this for Team STRQ. Her death by Salem's hands was the straw that broke the camel's back that led to their dissolution, as it convinced Raven there truly was no hope in beating Salem and had her cut all ties with the other two.
• Magic Knight:
  • Ruby, thanks to her training, now fights by pulling out various weapons from her Hammerspace as needed for the situation at hand and can empower her weapons with her Silver Spirit Slayer magic.
  • Weiss was already one canonically thanks to her Dust and Semblance, but learning actual magic has made it even more obvious as she combines it with her sword play.
  • Esper Rosenflos/Summer Rose, even after taking the Winter Maiden's power, still prefers to fight by using knives and by channeling her Gold Spirit Slayer magic into them.
• Mage Marksman: While she's also a Magic Knight, Ruby has become this thanks to her training, as not only did she learn Gun Magic in order to summon guns from her Hammerspace, she also empowers her ammunition with her Spirit Slayer Magic since she can't channel it into her body like Yang and Weiss can with their respective Slayer magics.
• Malevolent Masked Woman: Played With. COMMAND ESR wears a black mask emblazoned with the symbol of Atlas to remain anonymous and intimidating as the leader of Atlas Intelligence, and it's revealed she's working with Salem. However, when she goes to take the Winter Maiden's power, Fria (a former Special Agent) muses that never before had that mask seemed so "kind" and ESR is nothing but respectful to the old woman, even apologizing for what's about to happen and promising to make it as painless as possible.
• Mama Bear:
  • Pyrrha's mother, Erza Scarlet Nikos definitely qualifies. She's a former tournament champion who loves her daughter with all her heart and can be very intimidating. Just ask a certain nosy reporter and Cinder, who receives a certain command (that would make Ellen L. Ripley proud) after inflicting a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on Pyrrha:
    "Get the hell away from my daughter, you bitch!"
  • Summer Rose, though estranged from her daughters Ruby and Yang, still very much cares for them alongside her adopted daughter Cinder. When one of the Albain brothers attempts to attack Ruby during a vulnerable moment near the end of the Battle of Haven, Summer drops a lightning bolt right on him that kills him instantly.
• Master Archer: Cinder was already an exceptional archer but upon fusing with Sagittarius her skills dramatically increase along with the power of her arrows.
• Master of Illusion: Emerald as per canon. This is why Salem selected the Gemini Twins for her to bond with as there powers compliment her Semblance perfectly.
• Master Swordsman: Probably the greatest is Erza but the list also includes Pyrrha, Qrow, Cinder, and Happy.
• Meaningful Name: COMMAND ESR ends up being one, given her true identity as Etherious Summer Rose.
• Meaningful Rename:
  • It's eventually revealed "Cinder Fall" was once known as Ella Autumn, also known as Ella Tremaine.
  • "End" is written intentionally as a name rather that the acronym, E.N.D. to represent his desire to be more than just a Superpowered Evil Side for Natsu.
• Mind Rape: The Enchantment Wendy tries to use on Scarlet Nikos to restore her memories are Erza Scarlet is derived from a Torture Spell meant to force the target to relive their worst experiences. Scarlet is forced to relive Erza's slavery at the Tower of Heaven, her torture while captured by Tartaros, her brutal beating in her battle with Irene, and being forced to fight against Mirajane while the latter was under the White Witch's thrall. In real-time the experience barely lasted a minute, but she is left screaming and horrified at what she experienced and barely keeps herself from physically attacking Wendy.
• Mirror Character:
  • It quickly becomes apparent that Cinder and Pyrrha really are two sides of the same coin, despite Pyrrha seeing Cinder as an Arch-Enemy. They're both prodigies who have become traumatized by events in their pasts, now seek to grow stronger to cover up their perceived "weakness" to Never Be Hurt Again, and are dearly devoted to their mother figures who they only dream they could be as badass as. The only real difference is that Pyrrha still hasn't slipped into evil to sate her desire for strength.
  • Salem and Ozpin are revealed to be this. Both are fully prepared to do terrible things if they believe that the survival of the world is at stake though Salem shows considerably less guilt than Ozpin regarding them.
  • While he would probably incinerate anyone who suggests this End has clearly been influenced by Natsu's personality to a certain extent. End likes a good brawl, is very loyal to his friends, is extremely honest, and has a bad temper (though his is far more dangerous). When Erza points this out to him, he goes ballistic and almost kills her.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: As Tyrian possesses the powers of Scorpio and Jackal, his Eclipse Etherious form gives him traces of both, with the fur and canines of the latter and a second scorpion tail in the form of the metal stinger of the former.
• Mole in Charge: COMMAND ESR, head of Atlas Intelligence, is revealed in Chapter 29 to in fact be in Salem's pocket and likely has been since her assignment to the role, using her connections and influence to pull the wool over the eyes of Ironwood, Eleanor, Weiss and others in Atlas and spin webs of conspiracy while simultaneously being behind the actual conspiracy, such as smuggling Adam into Atlas, using his raid to let Watts sneak the Black Queen Virus into Atlas' security system, setting up Weiss as a hero for defeating Adam only to just as quickly discredit her as a terrorist for the destruction of the Schnee Manor, and stealing the Winter Maiden's power under the chaos of the resurrected Ironwood's coup against the Council. Taken even further when it's revealed she's actually Esper Rosenflos, who used her Semblance and Transformation Magic to play at being both the well-loved Council Chairman and the head of Atlas Intelligence.
• Morality Pet: Summer is this to Salem making her more amendable to working with Ozpin despite the enormous amount of bad blood between them and she manages to convince the Queen to attack the Umbral Spirit King rather then the Brothers once that option is made possible.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister:
  • Both Sun and Ilia note Kali looks more like she could be Blake's sister rather than mother (and both profess an attraction to her and have to remind themselves she's married).
  • Similarly, Oscar and Ozpin both note Scarlet Nikos (Erza Scarlet) looks like Pyrrha's older sister rather than mother.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • For Raven its killing the former Spring Maiden. When Raven kicked her out of the Branwen tribe the girl screamed that she would join Salem if she wasn't let back in. Raven thinking that Salem wanted to wipe out mankind killed her in her sleep. When she learns what Salem real goals are she realizes it was All for Nothing.
  • Summer feels ashamed for many of the things she has done but the biggest seems to be her indirect role in Ella Autumns life being ruined.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Lucy is horrified when she discovers that she unknowingly tried to murder End when she rewrote the book of E.N.D.
  • Blake has this reaction when she finds out that she ripped off Yang arm when her Take Over magic went out of control.
• My God, You Are Serious!: Salem when she hears Ruby's suggestion of telling the truth to all of Remnant nearly falls out of her throne from laughing so hard and is surprised when she realizes that Ruby isn't joking.
• Mythology Gag: Several for the writer's previous work, RWBY Zero.
  • Esper Rosenflos has the exact same Semblance as Summer Rose from that work, and is revealed that is Summer.
  • Once again, Whitley has the misfortune of being attacked by Weiss who's under the influence of an outside magical force. At least this time he "just" gets away with needing a hospital stay rather than being killed.
  • Yang loses her arm to Blake, though this time it's due to Blake's take over magic going out of control and Yang doesn't have any hard feelings towards her.

N-Z

• Named Weapons: Aside from Crescent Rose, Ruby named plenty of her new armaments, such as Tulip's Aegis, Waxing Petal, Waning Thorn, Full Magnolia, and Reaper's Rose. Tragically, a great many of these, including Crescent Rose, are destroyed during Ruby's battle with Summer.
• Necessarily Evil: Esper/Summer views the death of innocents to be this. She posits such sacrifices should only be made when absolutely necessary for the betterment of many more or the greater good. It's why she schemes the death of Ironwood and uses Klein as a sacrificial piece, but is absolutely furious when Watts hijacks the plan early and ends up killing Willow in the Schnee Manor bombing as well. She reiterates to him when all is said and done by way of taking his body over with Macro and then slamming him hard into a desk that the next time he hijacks her plans and gets someone who didn't need to die killed, she'll send him back to Hell's Core the hard way as a lesson.
  • Salem herself views her and her faction's actions as this. She doesn't deny that they do amoral things but firmly maintains that they are necessary to save the World from the Grimm. The author has stated that it is up to the readers to decide on whether Salem goes too far or whether she just chooses the best of bad options.
• Never My Fault: A very sympathetic case. In a Flashback in Chapter 61, Cinder/Ella repeatedly thinks to herself that Eleanor killed her father when it was really the stress of the situation causing her Spirit Slayer Magic to go out of control that killed Benjaman Autumn. However, Ella was a scared young child who is unable to fully process what happened and this was her way of dealing with the trauma. What's more, her magic only went out of control as a result of Eleanor about to kill her Father anyway so it's largely her fault.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Chapter 43 reveals Ruby is the one who inspired Sitara/Salem to her original god-rebelling-and-killing plan. Sitara was originally trying like Zeref to erase her mistakes by finding a way to kill herself, but Ruby convinced her to stand tall in the face of the impossible just like Fairy Tail.
  • A literal case happens in Chapter 66. Nora, Ren, Pyrrha, and Gray come across Jaune's ascension and, thinking that he is being tortured, break the Ascension Chamber holding him. This results in Jaune getting both Aries and Franmalth in his head driving him insane, which leads to him absorbing Ren with Franmalth's curse. What's even worse, it kickstarts the most brutal battle so far between Salem's Circle and Fairy Tail that ends up having severe consequences for both sides.
• Noble Demon: End is by far the nicest demon that Zeref ever created. Really as long as you don't call him Natsu or are Lucy, he is a pretty friendly, pleasant, considerate person and is genuinely good friends with Salem, Happy, and Summer and wants to be friends with Jaune and Yang. That being said he is also incredibly dangerous and has a murderous temper.
• No Place for Me There: As she observes the aftermath of Haven's destruction, Summer has a moment where she reflects on how she's willingly gone from a hero to a devil because that's what needed to save the world and make it better, and how she has no place in that better world but doesn't care as long as her three daughters (Ruby, Yang, and Cinder) are happy in it.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • What Mercury believes about himself and Cinder, after learning about her history and seeing that it isn't very different from his own. Cinder of course is insulted by the insinuation but noticeably doesn't have many arguments to deny it.
  • Raven realizes this between herself and Ozpin with a little prompting from the former, though he clarifies she's still much better off than he is.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore:
  • The Volume 4 arc completely changes the course of the entire story. Not only is it revealed that Happy is a part of Salem’s inner circle, but End is in control of Natsu’s body, and Remnant is actually Earthland in the future. The White Fang practically breaks up with Adam’s death and Sienna being convinced to join Salem. Esper Rosenflos is revealed to be COMMAND ESR, priming Atlas for a takeover by Salem’s forces. As a result of the takeover, Jacques, Willow, Klein, and Ironwood are all killed when Schnee Manor explodes and Weiss is framed for it, half the Ace-Ops are wiped out, the public’s trust in the military is broken, Whitley takes over as the head of the SDC, and Esper gains the Winter Maiden powers and becomes First Citizen of Atlas while naming Robyn Hill Governor of Mantle. Weiss, Gray, and Penny are forced to flee Atlas as fugitives and Winter captured after buying them time to escape. And on top of it all, the true identity of Esper Rosenflos/COMMAND ESR is revealed to be Summer Rose.
  • The Grimmlands arc later shatters Fairy Tail, RWBY, JNPR, Salem’s forces, and the status quo as a whole. In the ensuing battle, Weiss killing Summer causes Yang to fully snap, cementing her Face–Heel Turn and joining Salem’s forces, and Ruby becoming the new Winter Maiden. Jaune’s Ascension is interrupted midway, and he ends up going insane, absorbing Ren before falling into a coma. Wendy and Oscar seemingly pledge their loyalty to Salem so they can try and bring her down from within, while also helping Happy to get Natsu a new body. Ruby’s second trip to the past leads to Jellal and Juvia being brought to the present. Lucy is taken prisoner after being rendered unconscious by End, and before that, she was forced to break Loke’s key to summon the Celestial Spirit King. Erza’s arms and legs suffer severe burns in her fight with End, essentially crippling her. And Cinder, Emerald, and Mercury begin their own plans.
• Number Two: End serves as Salem's second in command in addition to her strongest follower with all of the Gates required to follow his orders.
• Odd Friendship: The one between the stiff and proper Carla and the easygoing and constantly drunk Qrow.
• Official Couple: As of Chapter 39, Jaune and Pyrrha have become this as well as Ren and Nora.
• Offing the Offspring: A particularly tragic case. Ozma, who was worried about what Salem was planning, decides to take their daughters out of their kingdom before talking to her. However Salem runs into them and the feeling of anger and betrayal at Ozma for trying to steal her daughters from her triggers Seram's Madness and she attacks him, with their children caught in the crossfire of the battle. Eons later and both parents are still devastated by the loss.
• Oh, Crap!: End gets these reactions from others a lot. Raven in particular freaks out the minute she sees him at her camp and instinctively tries to run.
• One-Man Army: Most of the Gates are this. End however surpasses any of them having the power to destroy all of Minstral if he chose to.
• One-Winged Angel: Everyone on Salem's side with the exception of Happy has access to an Eclipse Etherious form which fully unleashes their demonic and Celestial Powers dramatically increasing their strength. Terrifyingly enough the author has noted that End's base form is slightly more powerful then any of the Gates released forms.
• Orcus on His Throne: Salem is an unkillable sorceress whose only competition as the most powerful being on Remnant, End, is on her side. Despite this, she has not left her castle in the Grimmlands. It's explained that while she would like to take the field herself to retrieve Team RWBY and the other Fairy Tail wizards, it's only her presence that keeps the Grimm from destroying her castle and the Neo-Hell's Core within, forcing her to act through the Gates. Watts is currently working on a backup Core which will allow her to leave Castle Evernight.
• Papa Wolf: Tai is firmly prepared to help storm Salem's Castle despite having no magical powers and being aware of just how powerful Salem and her servants are when Yang is taken there.
  • When Sitara is kidnapped by Mard Geer, her father, the Celestial Spirit King, immediately has several trusted Celestial Spirit Mages summon him to the area he's taken her to and spends the entire day hammering on the shield surrounding the tower. He later openly and harshly condemns both Ankhseram and Ankh for their cruelty to her and 300 years later he still has a serious grudge against Mard Geer.
• The Paragon: Discussed both In-Universe and by Word of God, pointing out there are several characters who inspire others to heights they normally would never reach on their own through charisma and sheer badassery, among them Ruby Rose, Summer Rose, Natsu Dragneel, and Erza Scarlet.
• The Paragon Always Rebels: End and Teacher are the two most powerful members of Salem's circle, and they are actually Natsu Dragneel and Summer Rose. Both of whom were champions and inspirations on the heroes' side and in joining Salem have worked to bring many others to her side, such as Happy and practically all of Atlas.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Teacher/Esper Rosenflos/Summer Rose to Cinder. Teacher was not only Cinder's primary caretaker when she was brought into Salem's fold, but also makes she sure she takes care of her health, dotes on her like she is her own child, and teases her about making friends. Cinder doesn't admit it aloud, but she is very excited at being able to talk to her during one of Salem's calls. Hearing Watts and Tyrian even insinuate that Teacher might be weak is enough to nearly send her into a rage, and when Teacher admits the possibility she could end up making a fatal mistake, Cinder immediately denies that she could ever do that and they'd just bring her back with Hell's Core if it did happen. It makes more sense when it's revealed Teacher is actually Summer Rose, who has made a habit of adopting others as her children just like with Yang.
  • Salem to Cinder. Though to a lesser extent than Teacher, Cinder acknowledges that Salem is the head of their little family, and she encourages Cinder to form friendships as well. She even likes to playfully embarrass Cinder and takes unannounced pictures of her with Mercury and Emerald when they are "bonding."
  • Ironwood to Winter. Winter herself notes that she wishes her superior had been her father and declares him as such against the ones who orchestrated his death.
• People Puppets: Esper/Summer has the Macro Curse of Seilah. However, it's biggest weakness is that it cannot control a person's soul. As Aura is effectively the manifestation of a person's soul, she can't control someone who has their Aura activated until it's either broken or they deactivate it.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Jaune described End as a Natural Disaster Waiting to Happen and him just showing up is enough to cause any area he is in to feel much hotter. He obliterates the Brawnwen tribe with a single attack and when he later loses control during the Battle of Haven, he nearly burns the Academy to the ground. This is actually a problem for him. His powers are so destructive that he has to severely restrict them to keep from killing people or destroying places he doesn't want to. Salem at one point states he could have handled the Haven mission by himself, but it would require him to use too much power and would destroy the school which she doesn't want. This allows opponents who are much weaker than him like Jaune and Wendy to hold him off for some time. When he activates his Etherious form, it gets much worse. His very presence causes the surrounding lands to turn to lava and Hazel believes that only Salem's Etherious Form and the Celestial Spirit King can avoid being incinerated while in his vicinity.
  • Salem also counts as her Eclipse Etherious form is a massive 12 headed hydra that can emit blasts capable of competing with Acnologia's Dragon Roar and several of her fights have resulted in destroyed castles.
  • Tyrian with a single attack is able to destroy a large part of the Wall of Kuo Kana and slaughter half of the guard. It takes the combined efforts of Lucy, Blake, Ilia, Sun, and Leo to defeat him and that was only due to his need to take Lucy and Blake alive.
  • Jaune after becoming a Gate and absorbing Ren's soul and gaining access to his Crash Magic is able to bring down Salem's castle with a single attack.
• Physical God: Both End and Salem are basically this. The author has confirmed that both of them are more powerful then Zeref and only Acnologia and the God dragons at their full power surpass them.
  • The Umbral Spirt King. Salem admits that she could not beat him even if he were to manifest on Remnant where he is weaker. In his own world however he is basically invincible with the Queen stating that she wouldn't be able to even stand if he did not want her too.
• Playing with Fire:
  • As in canon, Cinder while using the Fall Maiden's powers. Wendy comments that she's putting out flames intense enough even Natsu would have been impressed by them before he went off for Training from Hell after the Tartaros arc.
  • Yang's magic is Fire Devil Slayer Magic, which manifests as pink-coloured flames. Natsu comments that, similar to Zancrow's God Slayer flames, it's hard to eat her magic.
  • The Ophiuchus controls and uses fire himself. Fitting, as he is Natsu, or rather End, the true personality of E.N.D.
  • Eleanor Tremaine's Semblance is called Lucifer, a cat made out of fire.
• The Poorly Chosen One: Played with in regards to Summer Rose. Ozpin viewed her as the one who might finally defeat Salem before her apparent death, but admits his mistake was not in choosing her but in putting the sole burden of that role on her rather than trusting in Team STRQ as a whole. He hopes to avoid that mistake with Ruby and Team RWBY. And then it turns out Summer became Salem's right-hand woman...
• The Power of Friendship:
  • Fairy Tail espouses this, as per canon.
  • Surprisingly, Salem of all people also encourages this amongst the members of her inner circle. She advises Cinder to view Emerald and Mercury not as her subordinates, but her equals and allies.
    • Something Cinder is actually trying to do as of Chapter 28.
• Powers via Possession: Blake's specific Magic is Takeover: Spirit Soul, which allows her to absorb and use the powers of spirits. When she first unlocked it, she nearly absorbed Loke/Leo, but she learned that she could just siphon off energy to temporarily use their powers. Later, she discovers that Grimm are actually corrupted spirits and her magic works just as well on them. She can do the partial transformation just fine (and it even makes other Grimm think she's one of them and not attack her), but a Full-Body Takeover causes her to lose her mind to the negativity and become a feral beast.
• Pragmatic Hero: Jaune, Grey and Wendy of all people are starting shows signs of becoming this Jaune takes advantage of End's sincere desire to befriend him to become a Gate hoping to have more power to potentially take on Salem's faction if he doesn't agree with their plans, Gray suggests returning End to his torturous existence of being trapped in his own body and Wendy wants to use and manipulate Salem to get separate bodies for Ozma, Natsu and Irene. Both Lucy and Carla are somewhat disturbed by this trend.
• Properly Paranoid: Ironwoods paranoia in this universe is a bit more justified since here both the head of Atlas Intelligence and the Council Chairwoman (who are the same person) are working for Salem. Subverted somewhat as its that very paranoia that keeps Salem from trying to recruit him as well as force Summer to accelerate her plans to takeover Atlas with the end result being the Queen gains control of the kingdom and Ironwood is killed.
• Psycho for Hire: This appeared to be what Tyrian was for the White Fang when he was part of the organization as he shows no interest whatsoever in their cause and simply liked killing people.
• Psychological Projection: Cinder coldly dismisses Mercury as "an up jumped cutthroat with daddy issues, chasing every scrap of power [he] can;" A description that fits Cinder herself perfectly. When Mercury points it out she retaliates violently.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking:
  • Salem calls herself one of the most powerful beings in history and it shows. She is noted to be stronger then any of the Gates and only End is considered to be on her level.
  • Salem's two highest ranking warriors also count. End is the most powerful Etherious to be created stronger then even Zeref, has Fire powers that make Natsu's look like a candlelight in comparison and can walk off attacks by Devil and Dragon Slayers.
  • Esper Rosenfloss/Summer Rose is an extremely skilled and powerful fighter held by Ozma to be one of the most talented huntresses to ever enter Beacon and who has access to both Gate and Maiden powers and whom forced Weiss, Penny, Winter and Gray to flee when she goes all out.
• Really 700 Years Old: Sitara/Salem was thousands of years old even before she was exiled to Earthland/Remnant. She is almost certainly the oldest living creature on Remnant.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Salem is this. She listens to what her members of her Circle have to say and has no problem being questioned or disagreed with and never unfairly punishes her subordinates. She also eventually accepts attacking the Umbral Spirit King rather then the Brothers after some careful persuasion by End and Summer.
• Relatedinthe Adaptation: In this universe Cinder has been adopted by Summer meaning that Yang and Ruby are her foster sisters. None of the three of them are thrilled by the news though Yang does sarcastically call Cinder sis at one point.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: Said almost word for word by General Ironwood's reanimated corpse being controlled Watts before trying to overthrow the council of Atlas.
• Required Secondary Powers: Cinder and Summer need to have Scarab Grimms implanted into their bodies which provides a buffer between their Spirit Slayer Magic and their half-Celestial Spirit bodies post-Ascension. Without them, their own magic would immolate them within seconds due to being an Oxymoronic Being.
• Revenge Before Reason: Weiss is starting to show this. She displays tunnel vision where Esper is concerned and ignores that the situation is more complicated than first assumed. When Ruby and Blake point out that they may need Salem to stop the Umbral Spirit King her response is to claim that they can defeat him by themselves (which considering he's so powerful even Salem and End are wary of their chances and could control all the Grimm world-wide if he manifests on Remnant is unlikely) and even declares that she doesn't want to be part of a team that makes deals with Esper or Salem. Gray has to confront her directly and remind her that while he's just as chomping at the bit for vengeance as she is, that doesn't change the fact what they want is not the same thing as what the world needs and they need to put the latter above the former if that's what's necessary. When Salem's castle comes down Weiss immediately convinces herself that it had to have been her completely ignoring how improbable that is so she has an excuse to go after Esper. Taken to its ultimate level when she calls on the Umbral Spirit King's power to launch an attack that would have unintentionally have killed Ruby had Esper not sacrificed herself to get her out of the way. Whats more Weiss didn't think of the full affect killing Esper would have on her daughters and now Yang Weiss's friend and teammate wants her dead.
  • End sort of shows this at Haven. When Lucy calls him Natsu, he tries to kill her despite Salem needing her to find the final Fairy Sphere. It's subverted somewhat as this is more his trauma from when Lucy nearly erased him acting up and once he calms down he leaves rather then go after her. When Jaune asks him whether revenge is his purpose, he states that revenge is a luxury he doesn't have and that Salem's plans are far more important.
  • Salem shows this when she still wants to go after the Brothers despite the possibility of being able to target the less powerful Umbral Spirit King. She is gently coaxed out of this by End and Summer and does realize this whereupon she then agrees that targeting the Umbral Spirit King if possible is the better option.
• The Rival: Qrow has one among Salem's group, who so happens to be Happy.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Weiss shows this against Summer and ultimately succeeding in getting revenge. Summer's adoptive daughters, Yang and Cinder, return the favor and are currently trying to get revenge on Weiss.
• Running Both Sides: Esper Rosenflos and COMMAND ESR, despite on the surface being opposed to each other in Atlas politics, were always the exact same person. Esper used transformation magic to disguise herself as Gretel Rainhart, Hazel's cousin, who took up the mask of COMMAND while also using her blade clone Semblance to masquerade as herself in the role of the Council Chairwoman.
• Sanity Has Advantages: Seram's Madness is probably Salem's biggest weakness. When she loses control of it not only does it cause her to attack anyone in sight but it also robs her of many of her powers as well as the ability to think properly. As Ruby acknowledges the only reason Ozma was able to temporarily kill her or for that matter hold out for as long as he did was due to Salem losing control.
• Self-Duplication: Esper Rosenflos' Semblance allows her to create clones of herself, though she needs to use blades in order to make them. They're fully sentient as well, but damage will revert them back to their true forms. She used them as part of her masquerade in the role of Council Chairwoman and head of Atlas Intelligence, and it's revealed that if she empowers the blades with magic first, the clones can use said magic before it runs out.
• Shadow Dictator: Officially Teacher/Esper Rosenflos/Summer Rose is First Citizen and ruler of all of Atlas but she takes orders from Salem who's existence very few are aware of.
• Shadow Walker: Drizzella Tremaine's Semblance is this, allowing her to pass into and move through shadows, befitting her status as an Atlas Intelligence agent.
• Ship Tease:
  • Gray and Weiss get quite a bit, which is commented upon by several characters. Weiss, for her part seems to have genuine feelings for Gray, but avoids acting on them out of respect for him and Juvia.
  • Yang gets some with both Lucy and Natsu. At first she claims she's just trying to play matchmaker for those two and perhaps seeking to get some fun of her own without anything deeper, but it becomes apparent that she's more serious about it than that.
• Shout-Out:
  • Ozma has a spell called, Arc of Time: Double Accel, which shares its name and effects with a spell used by the main protagonist of Fate/Zero.
  • The reanimated corpse of General Ironwood being controlled by Watts quotes Mark Twain's famous, "reports my death have been greatly exaggerated."
  • Esper Rosenflos quotes the legendary Emperor Palpatine's, "it's treason, then." Also, the name of the order that grants her emergency powers over Atlas? "Special Motion Sixty-Six SW."
  • Cinder weaponizes Kyoka's Enhancement Curse to provide dramatic bursts of power for short periods of time to allow her to overwhelm her foes with sheer ferocity and speed before they can adjust, though pushing to too high a level than her body can handle can potentially cripple her. In other words, as Word of God puts it, she's using her own version of Kaio-ken.
• Skyward Scream: Wendy has one in Chapter 30 as the guilt and stress of realizing that she and who knows how many of her friends are trapped in a devastated Earthland, will likely never again see their other friends in Fairy Tail again, and that regardless of whether or not she hadn't been wounded by the White Witch in the final battle, some of her friends (be it the Strongest Team then or Ruby and Pyrrha at Beacon Tower) would have suffered, all finally gets to her.
• Smug Snake:
  • Cinder Fall. While she is legitimately powerful and cunning, she tends to overcompensate with the ego which is partially why she lost to Wendy, and effectivly cost them the Relic of Knowledge after getting herself sealed in the Vault of the Spring Maiden by Erza, Raven, and Pyrrha. Tyrian and Watts both look down at her as someone who lets her desire to do what she wants override what she needs to do, and even Hazel and Happy view her as prone to "theatrics" that cause far too much collateral damage.
  • The Albain twins are definitely this. They believe they can use Tyrian Callows as an Unwitting Pawn to kill off Ghira and Kali in his desire to recover Blake for Salem and use this to become Menagerie's new leaders and elevate themselves to peers of Sienna to avoid her wrath of being Adam's accomplices. In reality, Tyrian knew from the start what they were trying to do, Sienna knew of their ambitions due to the resurrected Adam being forced to divulge the names and has no issue with Tyrian using them as he desired, and he forcibly recruits them into leading the attack on Haven Academy to recover the Relic of Knowledge with the threat of blowing them up if they try anything funny.
    Tyrian: The two of you have always been so clever, so cunning. Alas, you have fallen into the same trap that many who are clever but not wise do: just because the rest of the world does not match your cunning does not mean they are fools.
• Spanner in the Works: In Chapter 31, Weiss would have been delivered to Salem without issue were it not for the timely Big Damn Heroes moment of Penny, ready to save her friend and get a bit of early revenge on Watts.
  • Cinder is this to her own side repeatedly derailing her more cunning superiors' careful plans. The Fall of Beacon was a fiasco for Salem's Circle. The fall severely derailed Salem's plan to recruit Fairy Tail onto her side, something that she deeply desires for both personal reasons and because Lucy and Wendy are vital to her overall goals. In addition, the Fall caused Ironwood's paranoia to shoot through the roof, forcing Summer to abandon her initial plan to take over Atlas via slowly and quietly replacing members of the Atlas Council with people she could control, and instead had to enact a coup that left multiple people dead and made recruiting Fairy Tail even harder. She does the same thing at the Battle of Haven, turning what should have been an easy victory for End and the Gates into a battle that left her and Mercury dead, the relic gone, and Haven burnt to the ground. Both Salem and Summer see this trend and firmly tell Cinder she needs to smarten up.
• Spared by the Adaptation:
  • Both Roman and Pyrrha avoid their canonical Volume 3 deaths thanks to Ruby, though it's touch-and-go for Pyrrha for a bit given she almost gets killed in the Cinder vs Ruby fight by the former before unlocking her magic, and even then she would have died from her accrued injuries had Wendy not been freed from her Fairy Sphere.
  • Sienna Khan avoids her canon death by Adam's hands during his coup due to Hazel being faster on the uptake and protecting her.
• Spirit Advisor:
  • Ozpin to Oscar, as per canon. He's actually taken up a larger role in mentoring Oscar in using his magic as well as helping Pyrrha with her own.
  • Irene Belserion decides to take up this role for Wendy in teaching her more powerful Enchantments after Wendy learns that Remnant is Earthland's future and deeming the situation grave enough lend her guidance.
• Spotting the Thread:
  • Weiss figures out that Ana Tremaine is in on the Atlas conspiracy by tricking her into feigning ignorance on the subject of a magic-sealing cuff on her when Weiss knows thanks to Gray overhearing a conversation between Ana and Drizzella that she knows about magic and that Weiss has it.
  • Part of the reason Gray is able to realize the truth about Esper is because he can detect the minute amounts of magic drifting off of the real her that her blade-clones completely lack.
  • At the end of the Battle of Haven when Atlas gunships show up to slaughter the remaining White Fang, Qrow notices not only did they not make a show of demanding surrender first before opening fire, but the Winter Maiden is among their number, both of which are red flags since Ironwood despite everything would always offer a chance to surrender, and there's no way in his paranoia that he would ever let the Winter Maiden leave Atlas after what happened to Amber even if Fria had passed on her power. Both of these has him on edge even before Penny and Gray make their Big Damn Heroes moment to get the heroes to Patch.
• The Stoic: Hazel is typically this rarely showing much visible emotion. Much like in canon though when Ozpin shows up or is even mentioned his quiet demeanor goes out the window.
• The Strategist: Summer serves as this for Salem helping her form her strategy for her war with Ozpin. Its shown to be a success so far with Salem gaining an enormous advantage over Ozpin and his inner circle.
• Strong and Skilled: A fighting style End espouses and displays incredibly. Not only are his flames far more powerful than Natsu's, he is also far more precise and creative in their usage.
  • Cinder also displays this having immense raw power as a Gate and Maiden as well as enough skill in close combat that she can fight Erza evenly.
• Superpowered Evil Side: What everyone who knew assumed End was for Natsu. No one including Zeref had any idea that the Demonic energy inside Natsu was actually sentient. Needless to say many people are shocked and in Lucy's case appalled when they learn that E.N.D is a separate person from Natsu. One of the main reasons End hates Natsu so much is that he was treated like this despite Natsu actually being the one who was occupying his body.
• Superpower Lottery: Salem wins this easily as she has the largest arsenal of sorcery of anyone on Remnant. When she was first created she was given the ability to command the Zodiac which after her becoming part Umbral Spirt extends to nearby Grimm. She can also use multiple Elemental Magics all of which are superior to the Maidens powers. She can use the Metria spells far better then Lucy can (Unsurprising considering she invented at least a few of them). Salem is also a competent is not master healer and enchanter. In addition she has physical strength on the same level as the Gates and is extremely fast as well. Her Transitive Curse means that she can cast any magic as a curse and any curse as magic which means that she doesn't need a Maiden nearby to utilize her magic fully in addition to be incredibly useful against opponents like Acnologia or Franmalth who are immune to most types of Magic. The Queen also has access to all the Lovecraftian Superpower she has in canon meaning she can spawn Grimm arms from anywhere and is a Rubber Man which she uses in conjunction with her Super-Strength. If that weren't enough she still has her complete immortality and a Deadpool level healing factor from canon which means that she can recover from any attack now matter how devastating in seconds and either doesn't feel pain from them or is capable of ignoring it. The only attacks that are somewhat effective on her are Spirit Slayer Magic and End's Fire and she still recovered from a point blank blast from former in a less then a minute. Finally and most devastatingly she has her Eclipse Etherious form a giant 12 headed hydra that can fight evenly with Acnologia one on one for a considerable period of time while he's in his dragon form a feat only Igneel managed. Salem wasn't exaggerating when she called herself one of the most powerful beings in history and the immense fear she inspires is clearly justified.
• Super-Strength: All of the Gates get this upon their Ascension.
  • End in addition to his fire powers has this. He was able to casually send Shay D. Mann flying a great distance with his strength and later took out a large portion of Yang's aura with a single blow while holding back most of his power. His strength is later shown to be superior to Erza's when they first clash.
  • Salem also has physical strength at least on the same level as her Gates when she casually sends Jaune flying through a wall with just one hand.
  • Hazel already had Super Strength even before he became a Gate but after fusing with Taurus whose power is his strength it goes through the roof making him probably the most physically powerful of all Salem's followers.
• Sympathy for the Devil: Weiss had nothing but disdain and hatred for Adam Taurus for his crimes against her friends and family, but when she defeats him in Atlas, her pride turns to horror and shame when she sees the Schnee brand on his face and is once more confronted with the sins her father has perpetrated on the company. And both she and Gray express nothing but disgust and anger when Eleanor executes Adam like a mad dog when they could have easily arrested and taken him in alive. And Weiss's sympathy only amplifies when she sees how Watts treats him as one of his zombie minions.
• Take Over the World: One of Salem's main goals is to take over the world. However she has no interest whatsoever in personal power and is disdainful of those that do. She wants to conquer Remnant so that she can turn all humans into Eclipse Etherious, which will enable them to kill the Umbral Spirit King and destroy any Grimm with ease. That being said it will involve bloodshed something that she doesn't deny though she is confident it will be limited since she already controls Atlas and Mistral is about to follow.
• Technicolor Fire:
  • Yang's Devil Slayer flames are pink in color and capable of harming demons.
  • End's blue flames are the most intense form of fire generation ever seen with them being hot enough to turn earth into lava and incinerate flesh in an instant.
  • Like in Fairy Tail canon, Purple Flare creates non-burning purple flames that can be shaped into various forms and grab physical objects.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • While Salem might encourage them all to get along, the inner circle isn't exactly sunshine and rainbows. Cinder, Watts, and Tyrian all take shots at each other verbally and only power differences and the Ophiuchus' stance on fighting each other keep it from escalating to full-blown physical violence.
  • Weiss and Gray with Atlas Intelligence. The former might be willing to work with the latter in order to fight Salem and her forces as well as minimize Jacques Schnee's influence, but they don't trust them due to their shadiness and tendency towards ruthless actions. And that's before it becomes evident COMMAND ESR is in league with Salem and has been manipulating Intelligence, Weiss and Gray to her own ends.
  • Summer and Watts. Her combat abilities, strategic,tactical skills, and charisma combined with Watts extraordinary hacking, technical and infiltration (via his Gate powers) skills make them an extremely effective team and together they succeed in taking over Atlas for Salem. However while they respect each others abilities they don't like each other on a personal level and at one point Summer actually threatens to kill Watts and she later makes it clear to Yang that she despises him while Watts ignores her orders at times and considers overly sentimental.
• Teleportation: Ana Tremaine's Semblance, Rebound, allows her to teleport to any unoccupied spot in her line of sight, making her adept at ambush tactics. However, after five seconds, she will teleport back to her starting point no matter what, meaning it's best used to make a Big Damn Heroes moment or a distraction for her allies to get to the location themselves.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Blake has this reaction in Chapter 33 when she sees who's in the Fairy Sphere located in Menagerie. As her entire plan predicates on having backup against Tyrian even with her family, Sun, and Ilia all working with the city guard, she was hoping for one of Fairy Tail's powerhouses like Mira, Erza, or even Laxus. Instead, she got Lucy, and while she isn't aware of the many levels in badass Lucy took in the interim since they've seen each other, it doesn't bode well of their chances.
• Time Master: Ozma is this big time, being the inventor of the Arc of Time. He had far greater mastery over it than Ultear Milkovitch. His reincarnation Oscar is also this, but to a lesser extent. Ozpin also mentions there is another mage with time-related powers somewhere in Remnant, but due to the nature of their powers they cannot actively fight Salem unless it's absolutely dire because actually using their powers would risk their life.
• Time Travel: Team RWBY didn't travel through dimensions to reach Earthland. They traveled through time to the past before the world became Remnant. Wendy already suspected this since the Fairy Spheres simply preserve whoever's inside outside of time, but Happy confirms it, adding the bombshell that he and Natsu were freed about fifty years before the present time.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Happens to Team RWBY after spending six months in Earthland though only 3 days had passed in Remnant. This was intentional on Salem's part, who wants them as Gate candidates.
    • Ruby has learned Requip and Gun Magic, and also has better control over her Silver Eyes, which she learns are actually a form of Spirit Slayer Magic. She also received Fairy Glitter from Mavis. Whereas canonically her clash with Neopolitan and Roman was with her on the losing end, here she's more than a match for them both at the same time and only their teamwork and Neo's tricky fighting style are able to give her trouble. She also only needs minimum help from Weiss to restrain the Wyvern before destroying it with a single Silver Spirit Wail.
    • Weiss learned Ice-Make and Ice God Slayer Magic. Whereas canonically she had to summon a part of her Knight to defeat an Atlesian Paladin, here she can wipe out four at once easily with a single Ice God Bellow. There are also hints that her glyphs (specifically the Summoning) are actually a form of Spirit Magic, specifically Umbral Spirit Magic given they let her summon Grimm.
    • Yang learned Fire Devil Slayer Magic. During her fight with Mercury, the assassin notes he actually has to put in the effort to match and wear her down to just above the red whereas canonically he was clearly just treating the fight like a workout, and that's before she starts using magic. When she does, it takes a single Fire Devil Rage to knock his Aura down to barely above red and launch him out of the arena.
    • Blake learned Take Over: Spirit Soul. Using Loke's borrowed power, she kills a giant Nevermore with just one punch to the face and once she loses herself to her first-ever Grimm transformation, absolutely thrashes Adam Taurus on her own and can match physical blows with Yang, something even before their trip to Earthland she never would have had a chance at doing.
  • Team JNPR also get in on learning magic themselves with some mentoring from Team RWBY. In order:
    • Jaune learns Holy Barrier Magic. He also unlocks his Semblance earlier than in canon.
    • Pyrrha learns Heavenly Body Magic.
    • Ren learns Crash Magic, though it's pointed out by Carla that he won't be reaching the level of Gildarts because his Origin is just too small to fuel spells of that calibre. It's still enough that he can kill the Nuckelavee easily once he gets his hands on it.
    • Nora learns Invisibility Magic, though it's implied she can actually take it further to some form of light reflection/refraction with practice.
  • Happy has gone from the Non-Action Guy who by the end of the Fairy Tail manga had the strongest move of body-slamming a target at full speed and didn't even have a human transformation, to a fighter counted among Salem's inner circle who can effortlessly shift to a Battle Mode far stronger than Pantherlily and carrying around a size-shifting BFS that converts to a sniper rifle and a freakin' Jupiter Magic Cannon. He was able to easily defeat Wendy despite her having Dragonforce and aid from Jaune, though it should be noted that she couldn't maintain Dragonforce for long due to Remnant's thin ethernano.
  • The Fairy Tail wizards themselves get in on the action when they have their Aura unlocked on top of their own natural abilities and magic. Lucy in particular is ecstatic about getting natural Super-Strength once hers is unlocked.
  • In Chapter 71, Ruby becomes the Winter Maiden.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Sitara seems to have been quite trusting when she resided in the Celestial Spirit World and was eager to see and meet the humans that the other Celestial Spirits had told her about. Thousands of years of experiencing how foolish and stupid humans can be at times has left her completely cynical of most humans believing that only a small amount of them can ever raise above their base nature.
• Top God: Or Gods in this case. As while Fairy Tail in their time had many Gods, the Brother Gods were and are the most powerful. Having created everything, the Celestials, Umbrals, and even the other Gods. They're so strong, that even Salem's plan to kill them despite all preparations is likely to fail.
• Tranquil Fury: Penny gives her usual "Salutations" declaration when she finally makes her reappearance, but considering she's in the middle of rescuing Weiss from Watts, the man who murdered her father Pietro, it's noted she's not smiling and saying it in her usual upbeat way, but snarling while charging her energy cannons to make it clear how she really feels.
• Trauma Button: Lucy is this for End. Lucy just showing up brings up his memories when she unknowingly tried to murder him causing the fire demon to lash out violently. Salem however is capable of calming him down.
• Trauma Conga Line: Salem/Sitara's life after arriving in Earthland is one trauma after the next with any brief periods of happiness being taken away cruelly. She starts off as someone who just wants to visit the humans world but the minute she gets there she is kidnapped and experimented on by Mard Geer. Then she gets rescued and prepares to go back home only for Ankhseram to exile her from her home, family and friends. Still she makes the best of her new life on Earthland and falls in love with Ozma only for him to die shortly afterwards. Then she goes to the brothers and begs them to return her love to her. Eventually she sees him again only for them to take him away immediately afterwards and curse her with immortality preventing her from reuniting with him in the afterlife. She then spends the next few centuries trying to find a way to erase her existence. Eventually she make friends with Team RWBY the first ones she had in centuries only for them to accidentally go back to Remnant soon afterwards. Then she decides to join Fairy Tail only for the Guild to be disbanded when she works up the courage to join. Then later on inspired by her friends she leads a rebellion against the brothers and they wipe out almost all humans leaving her alone being constantly stalked by Grimm for centuries. Then she is reunited with her love Ozma and has 4 daughters whom she loves with all her heart. But of course, her husband tries to take them away from her triggering Seram's Madness causing her to unintentionally kill them. It sucks to be Salem. Both Jaune and Ozpin think her trauma is affecting her judgment.
  • Yang's life after returning from Earthland has not been pleasant either. First, she loses her hand to Blake whose Take-Over magic was out of control during the Fall of Beacon, forcing her to stay behind to recover when the others set out to Haven. She also has to deal with the mounting insecurity about possibly turning into a Demon as a result of her Devil Slayer magic and what effect this could have on her relationships with her loved ones. Then she meets Raven, who abandons her again to save her own skin and gets crushed by End. This is particularly devastating for Yang as she had been prepared to give Raven the benefit of the doubt for her reasons for leaving. During the battle at Haven, she cuts off her other arm in order to get free and join the battle for her friends. Eventually, things start to look up for her as she is reunited with her beloved foster mother who was actually alive all these years only for things to go to hell during the battle in the Grimmlands. First, Carla, a friend and someone she trusts, takes advantage of that trust to lie and manipulate her (albeit with good intentions), and then Summer is killed right in front of her eyes by Weiss. What makes it worse is that she was prepared to let Summer face justice for what she did but all she wanted was more time with her. Needless to say, she snaps, abandons her friends believing they don't care bout her, and tries to kill Weiss.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Hazel espouses this belief, stating that betrayal is the greatest of sins that should be a last resort meant to save innocent lives. Adam betraying Sienna for something as mercurial as power in the middle of negotiations, according to himself, is the final proof needed that he is unworthy to stand amongst Salem's forces as even a candidate for the Gates. Salem agrees when she hears of the fallout. Hazel is later enraged when he thinks that Ozpin had the Neo-Hell's Core sabotaged during negotiations between Fairy Tail and Salem's Faction.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • Happy to Natsu. His loyalty to Natsu was so powerful that it allowed him to survive a demonization process where he would've been killed by the sheer agony alone; forcing himself to restart his heart every time it stopped by running magic through it with nothing but Salem's word that he had to survive for Natsu.
  • As in canon, the Ace Ops to Ironwood, as well as the entire Specialist Corps to the point of Blind Obedience. This is exploited by Teacher and Watts, who kill Ironwood and then reanimate his corpse to launch a coup against the Atlas Council. While some of the Specialists did refuse to participate in this illegal venture, and Vine does question the oddness of their orders multiple times, he, Elm, especially Harriet, and the majority of the Specialists so fervently believe in Ironwood that they commit to this treason regardless. The coup fails, resulting in Harriet, Elm, and Vine getting killed. Clover and Marrow only barely avoid joining them thanks to Clover's Semblance doing everything in its power to keep them away from the barracks when the reanimated Ironwood came forward with his plan and to collect his troops for it. Lampshaded by Winter, herself a firm practitioner of this to Ironwood, when she, Gray and Ana rush to try and stop it only to get stymied by said Specialists refusing to back down, noting that any other time she'd praise them for loyalty but only able to feel frustration and annoyance at knowing that loyalty is being manipulated and only getting them through by lying that she's under orders from Ironwood herself.
  • Tyrian as usual is fanatically devoted to Salem his goddess to such an extent that he was able to survive the pain of the Ascension which should have killed him. He is devastated when Salem makes it clear she is disappointed in his failure to retrieve Blake and Lucy.
  • End also is shown to be deeply loyal to Salem and is firmly devoted to her plans. As Salem saved him from Lucy, gave him back control of his body and is probably the first friend he ever had this is unsurprising. When Lucy sends the Celestial Spirit King (Salem's Father) to attack her he is so outraged that he enters his Etherious form.
  • Virgo used to be Salem's maid and is shown to be fiercely devoted to her. When Ankhseram arrives she asks to be punished in Sitara's place (her request to be punished is not played for laughs in this situation). The Maiden Spirit is also the first of the Zodiac to join Salem in her mission to defeat the Brothers.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Team RWBY is on both the giving and receiving end of this. When they first arrive in Earthland, they're convinced they alone as they are can take on Tartaros, the strongest remaining dark guild in Fiore, not realizing the power discrepancy until they fight Natsu and, though putting up a good fight, they're overwhelmed once he gets serious and learning from Erza Tartaros' elites should at least be of comparable strength and they need magic of their own to stand a chance. After they get magic, they get this from those who don't know about magic in Remnant and think they're just in-training Huntresses over their heads. This comes up again from Team RWBY's side after Fairy Tail members start showing up, since they don't realize just how strong they've become since they've last met (Team RWBY showed up and left in the time between the Grand Magic Games and Tartaros arcs, while all the Fairy Tail members are post-Alvarez and into 100 Years Quest territory), such as Ruby and Weiss being absolutely floored when Wendy goes Dragon Force and starts going toe-to-toe with Cinder's full Fall Maiden powers.
  • The Albain brothers assume that Tyrian is just a Axe-Crazy lunatic who can be easily duped and used. In fact not only is Tyrian a Gate and therefore one of the most powerful beings on Remnant but he is also highly perceptive and easily sees through their schemes and instead forces them to cooperate with Salem's plan.
  • Yang seriously underestimates just how insanely powerful End is thinking she could take him when they first meet. She is brutally disabused of this when he easily crushes her and Raven. Gray later suggests that he may be able to defeat End but Wendy quickly warns him that even if they all fought him together its unlikely they could win something which is made brutally clear to him during the Grimmlands arc.
  • Wendy thinks that Fairy Tail and Salem's Circle can defeat the Umbral Spirit King without the army of Eclipse Etherious since Mard Geer was able to hold off the Celestial Spirit King by himself and they have defeated stronger enemies then him. Loke, End and Lucy all point out that the Celestial Spirt King was severely limited in that fight due to not having a physical body and that his power was dependent on his summoner's strength and Lucy who wasnt a very strong wizard back then was also badly weakened by the battles with Tartaros. The Umbral Spirit King if he manifests on Remnant will be near his full strength and Loke believes that even being weakened by Universe Omega they still couldn't defeat him before his army of Grimm arrive to back him up.
• Universally Beloved Leader: Esper Rosenflos/Summer Rose has this being enormously popular with the people of Mantle due to the proposing many bills to support them as well as openly opposing Ironwood's embargo which devastates their economy. She is also highly respected by the people of Atlas with even Ironwood himself and Jacques Schnee respecting her. As such when she assumes emergency powers in the aftermath of the fake coup with Ironwood's corpse, it's to widespread cheer and she is shortly afterward elected First Citizen of Atlas making her a dictator in all but name. Even Robyn, who is initially suspicious of her rise to power and not a fan of dictatorship in general, is quickly reassured and convinced to join the new administration in part due to the fact that she 'wants' to believe Esper's on the up-and-up.
• Unknown Rival: Pyrrha is this to Cinder. In the aftermath of Cinder besting her at Beacon Pyrrha trains in magical abilities and reworks her whole fighting style and is practically obsessed with defeating her. By contrast Cinder doesn't give Pyrrha a second thought and during their second duel at Haven finds her annoying at best and of her three opponents (Erza, Raven, Pyrrha) pays the least attention to her.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Blake's Full-Body Takeover: Grimm Soul is unbelievably powerful, able to ragdoll the likes of Adam Taurus easily, beat down a combined assault from Sun, Ilia, and Ghira together, and overpower Yang in direct physical combat. However, in its unmastered state she's just a boiling cauldron of rage and instinct whose strategy boils down to "attack until it stops moving" and "use clones to surprise enemy". This gets her in trouble when she fights Tyrian, who admits that in raw power and speed he's technically outmatched, but his powers, his choice of battlefield, and most importantly his (not entirely) rational mind give him the edge. He even admits that if she was sane she could probably turn the tide (at least before he wiped out his Etherious Form), but the only reason she lives is because he was explicitly ordered to bring her back to Salem alive.
• Unstoppable Rage: Salem suffers from this as a result of her corruption by the Grimm pools, which gives her the omnicidal urges to wipe out humanity. She normally keeps it under wraps and holds the bloodlust back, but in moments of emotional vulnerability it comes out at the worst possible times. Such as when she attacked Ozpin and got her children killed in the crossfire, or when she broke free of Summer's Silver Eyes and punched a hole through her chest.
  • End also shows this during the Battle of Haven. For most of the fight, he's careful to keep himself in check to avoid killing those Salem wants to recruit, enabling Jaune and Wendy to hold him off. But the moment he sees Lucy, he completely loses it, instantly defeats Wendy while she is in Dragon Force, burns down most of Haven, and likely would have killed all the Fairy Tail Wizards if Jaune hadn't managed to calm him down.
  • In the aftermath of Salem's castle being destroyed Hazel immediately assumes that it was Ozpin and goes on a rampage against Oscar and Wendy both of whom can only slow him down at best and make a run for it as soon as possible.
• Villain Respect: End has this for many people, particularly Fairy Tail members, but his biggest respects go to Erza, Yang, and Jaune (who he and wants to make a Gate candidate).
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • During their time with Fairy Tail, Team RWBY finds out that Tartaros might have a connection to the book that sent them to Earthland and try to sneak away to track down the dark guild, Erza catches them. Still fresh off their victory at the Breach, the girls are confident that they can handle whatever wizards can throw at them. Erza then has them fight Natsu. The girls put up a good fight, but fall to their knees in surrender once he shows his full power in Lightning Flame Dragon Mode. Natsu even references the time Gildarts taught him the same lesson. Team RWBY agrees to stay with Fairy Tail for the time being and learn magic until they are strong enough to survive fighting Tartaros.
  • Yang serves as one to Mercury after their match at the Vytal Festival. While he was holding back during the fight to let her win, he actually had to keep himself from going for kill shots to hold his cover and he notes she was holding back too, and her overwhelming him with Fire Devil's Rage at the end makes him realize that he can't compete as he is anymore. From then on, he becomes determined to acquire magic powers of his own to close the gap.
  • And of course, Cinder herself proves to be this to Ruby and Pyrrha. Despite the latter being one of the strongest in-training Huntresses and unlocking her magic during the fight and Ruby using her own Magic to its fullest, neither are able to handle Cinder's full Fall Maiden powers. Even Wendy, who is using her Dragon Force doesn't win without taking some serious damage. And Cinder admits that even with these powers, she's still weaker than the likes of Tyrian and Hazel until she "ascends" and gets her own zodiac magic and Etherious curse.
• Walking Armory: One of the big reasons why Ruby chose to learn Requip magic; being a weapon's geek, she jumped at the chance to have the ability to store all manner of guns and melee weapons in a pocket dimension to pull out at her leisure without them weighing her down on the field.
• Weak, but Skilled: Emerald is this compared to the other Gates. She has the least on-paper destructive abilities compared to her comrades, but their versatility and her own knowledge of their ins and outs makes her still a dangerous threat, combining her Semblance with Gemini's Power Copying and Shapeshifting (the former of which she can use even when she's not transformed) and Lummy's Slippery Curse to make attacks "slide" off of her to avoid or mitigate damage. Plus, between herself, Cinder, and Mercury, she has the fewest mental issues getting in the way of doing her mission. She later gains a considerable boost in raw power when she acquires the Fall Maiden powers.
  • Happy is this compared to the Gates. Unlike the rest of Salem's followers, Happy doesn't have access to the powers of a Zodiac Warrior or a Demon of Tartaros and is the weakest of everyone on Salem's side in terms of raw power. He makes up for it however with his speed, sniper abilities, and shapeshifting and is skilled enough in swordsmanship to fight Qrow evenly..
  • Probably the best representation of this is Jaune. His magical power while superior to Ren and Nora is still well below an S class wizard. During the battle of Haven he is pitted against End who alongside Salem is the most powerful being on Remnant. While he does ultimately lose he manages via extremely inventive ways of using his magic to hold off the fire demon for a considerable amount of time and even stopped several of his magic destroying fire attacks. End is so impressed by Jaune's abilities that he decides to offer him a place on Salem's Gates. After becoming a Gate he loses the weak aspect.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Eleanor Tremaine, with a heavy emphasis on "extreme". She is obsessively loyal to Atlas as an intelligence agent and expresses pure disgust for racists and those who abuse their power like Jacques Schnee. When it becomes clear to her that COMMAND ESR has in fact been a traitor the whole time, she doesn't hesitate to cut ties and race off to save the Council from the resurrected Ironwood's coup without orders. She is also a brutal militant who subjected her daughters to heavily abusive training to turn them into weapons for Atlas. She was also part an elaborate operation called Godmother's Haven to marry Benjamin Autumn, a councilman of Mistral, as part of a plot to gain political and economic control in both Mistral and Menagerie and as a bonus keep war from breaking out between the two. When Benjamin discovered her plot, she killed him in cold blood, kidnapped his daughter and subjected her to the same training as her daughter to make her a loyal killer for Atlas; only for her to go missing on her first mission and be labeled KIA. It is all but confirmed that as a consequence of Eleanor's actions, Benjamin's daughter survived and grew up to be Cinder Fall. And in the end, she's fully willing to side with COMMAND ESR/Esper Rosenflos in her plans if the end result has Atlas leading a newly-unified Remnant.
  • Esper Rosenflos admits she's this in a conversation with Whitley, noting that she's done things she's not proud of in the name of hopefully securing a better future, even if she puts up the public image of the noble if naive councilwoman fighting the good fight. She's also questioned herself on whether that's a path honestly worth continuing, but Whitley assures her that since she's fighting for the good of others instead of for her own personal gain, it's better to have suffering with a net gain than suffering for suffering's sake. This takes on an entirely new meaning when it's revealed that not only is she COMMAND ESR, but she's also one of Salem's Gates and Summer Rose.
  • Salem herself is shaping up to be this as compared to RWBY canon. While she's still fully willing to kill plenty of innocent people in the name of her goals, she doesn't condone unnecessary deaths and it's pointed out multiple times by several villains and even some heroes as they think about it that if she was truly set on wiping out humanity as the "Master of Grimm", she wouldn't need to resort to such subterfuge when she could drown everyone in a Grimm tide. The fact the likes of Happy, End, and Summer Rose are on her side seems to indicate that her goals here are actually in benefit of everyone since at least one involves the destruction of the Grimm and the potential true unification of humanity and Faunus even if her methods are beyond the pale rather than the canonical ones of dividing humanity to get them wiped out by the gods out of vengeance.
• Wham Episode:
  • Chapter 11: Ruby inadvertently frees Wendy and Carla from a Fairy Sphere during the Battle of Beacon.
  • Chapter 26 and 27: It's confirmed that Happy is indeed a member of Salem's inner circle, that the Ophiuchus is actually End in the driver's seat of Natsu's body, and that Remnant itself is actually Earthland in the future after some world-wide catastrophe, with the Fairy Spheres having preserved them through time.
  • Chapter 28: Jacques, Willow, and General Ironwood are all killed in a massive explosion at Schnee Manor unwillingly caused by Klein while being controlled by one of Salem's Gates via the Macro Curse where he is killed as well. And then, Weiss is also taken by the Curse and forced to stab Whitley in the aftermath of the explosion. Because of this and the fact that she survived — because of her magic which only a handful of people know of — she is arrested as the prime suspect in the incident.
  • Chapter 29: Watts takes control of Ironwood's corpse and uses him along with an unwitting Harriet, Elm, and Vine to stage a coup against the council, only for the three Ace-ops to be killed in a shootout with Esper and the Tremaines, shattering the public's trust in the military. Watts then later kills Pietro personally, while COMMAND ESR is revealed to be the mysterious Teacher and she takes the Winter Maiden's powers from Fria. Finally, Esper is given emergency powers in the midst of this crisis, essentially granting her complete control of the Kingdom of Atlas. It is implied that the entire debacle was actually her plan, putting her loyalties into question.
  • Chapter 31: Esper Rosenflos and COMMAND ESR were always the same person, priming Atlas for a seamless takeover by Salem's forces. Eleanor Tremaine and her daughters were at least partially in on the truth as well, and Watts reveals he has plenty of zombies at his beck and call such as Adam Taurus. Meanwhile, Blake inadvertently realizes due to her Grimm connection that the Grimm are actually "Umbral Spirits" who serve the god Seram, just as their counterpart Celestial Spirits serve the god Ankh. All but stating that not only are these the true names of the Brother Gods of Darkness and Light respectively, but the true identity of Ankhseram, the god who originally placed the Curse of Contradiction on Zeref and Mavis.
  • Chapter 32: After losing to Esper in battle, Weiss, Gray, and Penny are forced to flee Atlas as fugitives while Winter performs a Heroic Sacrifice to buy them time to escape and is captured. Esper is then made First Citizen of Atlas, effectively making her dictator with the full support of the citizens and is even able to win over the highly skeptical Robyn Hill by making her Governor of Mantle. She has also managed to fully turn Whitley against his sisters and has secured his complete loyalty along with his control of the SDC. And perhaps the most terrible revelation, it is revealed that Esper's true identity is Summer Rose.
  • Chapter 55, as it tells everything about Salem's plans and the lore of how everything began.
  • Chapter 57, which both explains Summer's past and reasoning for joining Salem, as well as the swerve of Yang choosing to join Salem's cause upon learning this.
  • Chapter 71: Two long built-up fights go down ( Ruby & Weiss vs. Summer, and Erza vs. End) and both end in dramatic finishes, with Erza sustaining heavy injuries and Summer dying to save Ruby when Weiss summons the Umbral Spirit King's scythe and can't control it. The final scene is Yang bearing down on Weiss with intent to kill, repeating the same words Weiss had said after her fight with Summer at Amity.
  • Chapter 72, where the stress of being unable to live up to her own ideals causes Ruby to snap and use Salem's book to travel back to the past to the Fairy Tail Guild before they fought the White Witch, in a desperate attempt to salvage her situation.
• Wham Line:
  • Chapter 16, A seemingly run-of-the-mill flashback to Blake and Yang going with Natsu, Lucy, and Happy on a job ends with a surprise one when Levy gives Blake a book for the road.
    Levy: "Oh, it's amazing! It's the story of an ancient wizard that helped bring the world out of Zeref's dark age. He slew lots of demons and monsters, and even pioneered some of the Lost Magics! It's incredible!"
    Blake: "Really? ('reads the title') The Saga of Ozma, the Great and Powerful. I like it already."
  • Chapter 71, Erza questioning End about Natsu's whereabouts gives us a pretty major one. Though it does turn out to be a lie.
  Erza: "Where. Is. Natsu?!"
  End: "He's dead."
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Qrow has a moment like this when commenting on the magic Team RWBY and JNPR have, noting that compared to them his ability to turn into a bird seems pretty lame. Carla comforts him that it gives him unrivaled espionage ability, but he points out that in the fights they'll be getting into it won't be of much use. But in Chapter 46, Qrow remembers one useful aspect of his transformation power while battling the White Fang: suddenly turning into a crow and back unsettles opponents that feel fear.
• Winds of Destiny, Change!: Clover's Semblance, as in canon. We also get to see what it can do without Qrow's working against it. According to Clover, while it's not potent to do things like "kill all Grimm on the planet" just because he's in the general area, and he still had to train extensively as a huntsman since luck alone won't save him in a fight, it generally takes care of little things. He's never stubbed a toe, never gotten an unwanted toy from a claw machine, never hit traffic, etc. So, when he and Marrow suddenly get stuck in some of the busiest traffic ever and their Scrolls "just happen" to short out when they get a sudden call from Harriet, tells him something very bad is going down at the Specialist barracks if them not being able to get there can be considered "good luck".
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: After becoming a Gate, Jaune's power dramatically increases. However, because his team and Gray stopped the Accession before it was complete, he ends absorbing Aries and Franmalth's minds, driving him insane.
• With Usor Against Us: What Tai accuses Summer of practicing. She angrily denies this declaring that the only people who are against her are the ones who actively preventing her from saving the world and that it is fine if people decide not to join Salem's faction.
• World's Strongest Man: End proudly declares himself the strongest being on Remnant and his claim is mostly accurate with literally no other being on the plant capable of competing with him. The only one acknowledged as his equal is Salem herself.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: Teacher/Esper/Summer. Downplayed, as she is reluctant to put children in harm's way, but will do so if the success of her mission demands it.
• Wrong Assumption: In the aftermath of Jaune (unwittingly) destroying Salem's castle. both Yang and Weiss make some wild leaps in logic to blame the person they want to have been responsible.
  • Yang convinces herself that Raven must be behind the castle falling apart completely ignoring that Raven doesn't have that level of power or the time or means to set explosives up.
  • Weiss convinces herself that Salem's faction must have destroyed their own headquarters in an attempt to kill Fairy Tail ignoring that Salem and her forces badly outmatch Fairy Tail and wouldn't need to resort to that. This is so she can be free to go after Summer who she holds responsible for the decimation of her family.
  • Hazel also wrongly believes that Ozpin is the one behind the castle's destruction. He is slightly more understandable as it has been established that Ozpin has done plenty of shady actions over the eons and the destruction of the Neo-Hell's Core will in the short term pose a serious problem for Salem's Faction.
• Xanatos Gambit: Cinder during a "bonding" moment with Emerald and Mercury reveals this is what Salem builds her plans around and what Cinder herself seeks to emulate: No matter what side is facing each other and what weapons or choices they have, they will set the board and conditions so that no matter who wins or how they win, it ultimately benefits their side in some way.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: Summer is a master of improvisation. Quite a few people such as Cinder, Ironwood, Weiss, and Watts throw wrenches into her plan to takeover Atlas but she quickly finds new ways to work around their actions. By the end of the Atlas Arc, she is the unquestioned ruler of the kingdom with the SDC firmly under her control through Whitley (giving her virtually unlimited amounts of Dust and money), access to the Amity Tower meaning that Salem's faction will soon be able to control global communications, can remove the Staff of Creation whenever she wants. All her opponents are either dead, imprisoned or fugitives with their credibility destroyed. It's no wonder Summer is held in such high regard by the other members of Salem's Circle.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Happens frequently to Salem/Sitara. Anytime she finds any source of happiness its generally taken away from her shortly afterwards usually by means outside of her control.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Yang declares to Leo that he and the students of Haven will be disposed of when Salem has no more use for them. Leo denies this claiming that Salem does not dispose of pawns. Leo surprisingly enough seems to be correct as it fits into Salem's Benevolent Boss tendencies and Summer one of Salem's most trusted and highest ranked followers goes back to get him when Haven is on fire despite Eleanor Tremaine claiming he won't be much use after the attack.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: This seems to be how Salem views both Fairy Tail and most of her own followers. She has a disdainful attitude towards most humans caused by having to over the eons put with their foolishness and stupidity with any progress by them only caused by either her or Ozpin having to 'drag them kicking and screaming into a better day'. She believes that Fairy Tail and her Circle have managed to move past their base natures. She does seem to think that her plan to conquer the world and to turn all humans into Eclipse Etherious would help them change though. End who is also not human seems to share his masters attitude.
• You Remind Me of X:
  • When Esper Rosenflos first makes her appearance, Weiss (who had never seen her in person before but has heard of her) notes to herself that it might just be longing to be back with her friends, but Esper physically resembles an older Ruby just with golden eyes. It is revealed later that she's actually Ruby's mother, Summer Rose.
  • Sienna admits Hazel reminds her of Ghira: They're both powerfully-built men who have a strong sense of honor and dislike fighting except when necessary. They also both can't stand alcohol.
• Your Head Asplode:
  • This is the fate of the Nuckelavee once Ren uses his Crash magic on its head for the killing blow. Of course, End reveals this is only a temporary death since the Grimm is just an Umbral Spirit.
  • This is also how Mercury suffers his first death post becoming a demon, by Ren's hands again no less, after Blake and Yang manage to break his Aura and Ren is able to catch him by surprise. Again, this is only a temporary death given the Hell's Core technology, but it clearly wasn't very nice as shown by Mercury's viewpoint of the events both during and shortly after his death.

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