Fanfic / Fates Collide

Ruby and Lobo. Cover art by Ootato.

Fates Collide by Brandocko is a completed crossover between RWBY and the Fate Series portion of the Nasuverse, particularly Fate/Grand Order. It starts between Volumes 1 and 2 of RWBY.

Original cover art here◊.

Jaune Arc's sister is Jeanne D Arc, who attends Chaldea Academy in the Kingdom of Apocrypha. It is summer break in Beacon Academy, and when Ruby Rose finds out Chaldea Academy, which is apparently year-round, has an exchange program, she invites her friends to join. Team RWBY, Team JNPR, Cinder Fall, Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, and Neopolitan (the latter four had infiltrated Beacon as students) join the exchange program, while Glynda Goodwitch joins Chaldea as a substitute teacher to keep an eye on them and to satisfy her and Professor Ozpin's curiosity about the academy and Apocrypha in general. Cinder's group has ulterior motives for joining.

Each teacher and student is scanned and assigned a Class Card that functions as a key, describes their stats and abilities, and classifies them as a certain Class of fighter. Ruby Rose and Neo are Rider. Weiss Schnee and Jaune Arc are Saber. Blake Belladonna, Lie Ren, Mercury Black, and Emerald Sustrai are Assassin. Yang Xiao Long and Nora Valkyrie are Berserker. Pyrrha Nikos is Lancer. Cinder Fall is Archer. Glynda Goodwitch is Caster.

During their stay, they become roommates with existing students, while Glynda gets a room for herself. Ruby stays with Astolfo, Weiss stays with Marie Antoinette, Blake stays with Atalanta, Yang stays with Mordred, Jaune stays with his sister Jeanne, Pyrrha stays with Mash Kyrielight, Nora stays with Frankenstein, Ren stays with Kiyohime, Cinder stays with Archer (Shirou Emiya), Mercury stays with Gilgamesh (temporarily), Emerald stays with Robin Hood, and Neo stays with Henry Jekyll.

It now has a sequel called Lost to Dust.

---

This fanfiction contains examples of the next tropes:

Tropes: A to F

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Atalanta gets annoyed whenever Achilles hits on her. However, she becomes jealous when he hits on Blake.
  • Medb repeatedly tries to hit on Cu Chulainn. He finds her extremely annoying.
• The Ace:
  • Back when he was around, Arthur Pendragon was a master of all the Classes.
  • Siegfried is considered the greatest Saber in Chaldea.
  • Vlad is considered the greatest Lancer in Chaldea.
• Action Bomb: Jaune Alter can explode like a bomb at will. Thanks to his Healing Factor, he can come back.
• Adaptation Origin Connection: Thanks to the servants being human here, a lot of origin stories are interconnected.
  • Iskandar was Waver's partner when they were younger in his Alexander form, the two growing up and becoming professors at Chaldea.
  • Ushiwakamaru is Mercury's long lost sister.
  • Arturia Pendragon is the result of Arthur undergoing too many class changes, and Mordred is instead the daughter of Arturia and Diarmuid.
• Adaptation Species Change:
  • Due to the Holy Grail War not existing here, all of the "Spirits" are normal humans, with the exception of those with animal traits such as Atalanta and Nitocris, who are instead Faunus. Those with more than one animal trait such as Atalanta are Hand Waved as Faunus with multiple traits, something said to be more common in Apocrypha.
  • The Mounts of Riders are beings infused with the Aura of the Rider. There are two variants, the first being normal animals empowered by the Aura, the second being Grimm purified and turned into animals by the Aura.
    • Astolfo's Hippogriff was a Griffon infused with his Aura.
    • Iskandar's horse Bucephalus was a normal horse infused with his Aura, while the Divine Bulls that pull Gordias Wheel were Grimm infused with his Aura.
    • Cleopatra's cobra, Uraeus Astrape, was a King Taijitu infused with her Aura. Her case is notable in that she is the only Heroic Spirit that was not at any point a Rider capable of creating a Mount.
    • Lobo is a Mount to Ruby, created when Ruby infused her Aura into him as a Beowolf.
    • Pegasus, instead of being Medusa's demigod son with Poseidon, was a normal horse infused with her Aura.
  • BB is an Atlesian android in the vein of Penny, designed after the deceased Sakura.
  • The "Alters" are similar to humanoid Grimm in composition, though its noted there are some distinct differences between them and Grimm.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • The Fate villains who appear are on the side of good. At least, most of them, as Gilles de Rais can attest.
    • Gilgamesh is still an egocentric prick, but it comes across as him being a jerky teenager than an entitled king.
    • Kirei Kotomine is just as much a jerk as usual, but he is dedicated to protecting Apocrypha.
    • Thanks to not having a grudge on his past self and not being forced to work as a Counter Guardian, Archer (Shirou) is just a serious and cynical young adult rather than full blown Anti-Hero.
  • Simarily, Cinder's faction of the RWBY villains are humanized more here, and thanks to the bonds they form with the residents of Chaldea (Cinder with Archer and the Emiyas, Emerald with Robin, Mercury with Jackie, Nursery Rhyme, and Atalanta, and Neo with Jekyll), are much quicker to question whether what they're doing is right, and ultimately, perform Heel Face Turns.
• Adaptational Jerkass:
  • In canon, Sun is an earnest and relatively nice guy, albeit one who's occasionally Innocently Insensitive and with a penchant for bending the rules. Here, he's a full blown Stalker with a Crush and Crazy Jealous Guy, while also enough of a jerk to flirt with several girls while Blake is gone. His behavior manages to disgust not only Yang, Mordred, and Nobunaga, but Gilgamesh too, the man who initially treats women he favors as part of his possessions. Yang's response is to basically knock Sun out, bring him back to Vale, and tell him to never come back.
  • Similarly, Ironwood is a lot pettier than he is in canon. While he was a bit problematic in his approach to combating Salem compared to Ozpin, he still ultimately cared for the safety of all of Remnant, and only had Atlas enter a blockade out of paranoia and to protect it. Here, he's a lot more morally twisted, hacking into peoples virtual diaries and using data to create androids based on them, such as B.B. being based on the deceased Sakura. He's also quick to abandon Chaldea to its fate and claim it's a lost cause, and only relents when he learns Glynda is there, something neither she nor Ozpin are happy to hear.
• Adaptational Modesty: Martha wears regular clothes instead of her revealing outfit with huge Cleavage Window from the game (the author felt it was undignified).
• Adaptational Superpower Change:
  • In addition to absorbing electricity to increase her strength, Nora can also fire electricity.
  • Instead of firing silver light that kills, blinds, or petrifies Grimm, Ruby's Silver Eyes create a Reality Marble. It takes them to a featureless, white void, with an apparition of Ruby's mother Summer Rose. Summer wields a scythe and is almost invisible due to her white cloak. When more people visit it, it creates more apparitions based on their lost loved ones.
  • Medusa can control her stone gaze and doesn't have to wear her blindfold if she doesn't want to.
  • Instead of being able to steal Semblances, Marcus Black is immune to poison and becomes stronger whenever he is exposed to poison, which includes alcohol.
• All Deaths Final: Upon finding out Kairi Sisigou is a necromancer, Yang immediately asks if he can bring people back to life, likely intending to bring back her adoptive mother Summer Rose. He sadly informs her nothing can truly revive the dead. What his magic does is communicate with and draw power from the dead.
• Alpha Bitch: Nero Claudius, Tamamo no Mae, and Elizabeth Bathory form a trio of insufferable, egotistical girls who even have the nerve to insult Glynda. Their fourth teammate Attila is stoic and puts up with them. Elizabeth comes across as more of a Lovable Alpha Bitch after meeting Ruby.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Archer loves his mother Irisviel von Einzbern, but can't help but feel awkward because of her quirks and enthusiasm.
• Ambiguous Gender: Pyrrha believes Enkidu is a man while Mercury believes Enkidu is a woman. When Mercury attempts to ask, he gets interrupted.
• Anti-Magic: Pyrrha's Polarity only affects Enkidu's chains for a few seconds before it stops working. When she gets tied up in them, she is unable to use Polarity at all. Gilgamesh explains the chains are made of a divine element that nullifies skills.
• Anti-Regeneration: Gawain's sword Excalibur Galatine's flames weaken Jaune Alter's Healing Factor until he dies.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • Mercury gets his prosthetic legs blown off by Gilgamesh twice, then again by Enkidu, then his left leg by Bazett, then again by Kato Danzo, and a few more times.
  • Lancelot chops off both of Guinevere's arms to save Mash.
  • Gilgamesh loses his right arm against Gilles de Rais.
• Arbitrary Skepticism:
  • Francis Drake tells a tale of Apocrypha's first hero, Heracles, who liberated Apocrypha from the Grimm single-handedly (defeating twelve unique Grimm in the process), and inspired others to become heroes as well before disappearing. When Emerald finds the idea of one man doing all that hard to believe, Drake calls her out on not believing after all the amazing things she had seen already.
  • Vlad III explains that his Noble Phantasm, Kazikli Bey, gives him power over the concept of impalement itself. Pyrrha Nikos is shocked and says that is impossible. He tells her that she should learn not to limit her thinking, especially with all the unusual things in the world already.
  • Archer and Cinder Fall run into BB, who is an Identical Stranger to Archer's deceased friend Sakura Matou. He thinks she may actually be Sakura, even though he watched her die and get torn to pieces. When Cinder does some research and concludes it is more plausible that BB is an android, Archer says Cinder has some nerve thinking his idea is stupid, because her idea is the stupid one.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Kiyohime refers to Ren as "My Ren", Nora angrily orders her to take that back. Kiyohime replies, "Why, is he your Ren?" Nora then starts stumbling over her words.
• Arrow Catch: Bazett catches an arrow from Cinder. It explodes in her face, but she is unaffected.
• Attack Hello:
  • When they first meet, Cinder tests Archer's reflexes by forming her Glass Swords and attacking him, and is pleased when he forms Kanshou and Bakuya to block them.
  • Chloe decides to test Cinder's reflexes by firing an arrow at her, but since she fired it without getting Cinder's attention, Irisviel has to block it.
• Authority in Name Only:
  • Gilgamesh is still called the King of Heroes, but here it's a title he earned for passing a trial in the school. He let it go to his head and he acts like he's actually a king, but he still has to obey the teachers.
  • The same with Nero, who takes her title "Empress of Roses" seriously.
  • While Iskandar is a teacher so he has authority, he seems to take his "King of Conquerors" title seriously.
  • Cleopatra calls herself a queen, but at least she doesn't rub it in people's faces.
  • Edmond Dantes' "Count of Monte Cristo" and other titles are all made up.
• Ax-Crazy: Jaune Alter enjoys murdering helpless civilians, claiming it's how he wants to be remembered.
• Badass Boast: Attila/Altera declares, "I am the one who will destroy every Grimm on the face of the planet."
• Badass in Distress: Siegfried gets kidnapped by Jaune Alter, who keeps him bound by runes that electrocute him and then starts using magic to try to transform Siegfried into something.
• Bare-Handed Blade Block:
  • Jaune Alter catches Gawain's sword Excalibur Galatine with his hand, ignoring the pain even though it is red hot. Then Gawain powers up the sword, burning off Alter's fingers.
  • Penthesilea catches Cresent Rose's blade despite it cutting her hand.
• Bash Brothers: Yang and Mordred manage to fight in sync despite knowing each other for about a day. Martha congratulates them for it.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Elizabeth Bathory befriends Ruby and helps her shop for clothes after Ruby says she looks cool, saying no one ever said that to her before.
  • Jack the Ripper becomes attached to Mercury because he helped open a food container for her when she had a broken arm.
• Becoming the Mask: Mercury warns Emerald not to do this, since if she gets too attached to her new friends in Chaldea Academy, it will be painful once Cinder gives the order to turn on them.
• Berserk Button:
  • Atalanta does not like wasting food. She gets very angry when Ruby trips and spills a tray of food all over Mordred.
  • Yang throws Mordred's cigarettes in the trash, leading to her chasing Yang around the school.
  • Cu Chulainn gets upset when he finds out Archer has a copy of Gae Bolg inside Unlimited Blade Works, because it is left lying in a pile of other weapons instead of neatly stacked. Archer counters since his arsenal is unlimited, it's impossible to organize.
  • Nero gets pissed when she finds out Ruby creates rose petals, as that is one of her own abilities that she thought was unique. She gets even more pissed when she finds out Ruby's last name is Rose.
  • Mercury gets pissed when Kirei Kotomine asks him about his father, whom he hated. He also really hates alcohol, because his father was an abusive alcoholic, and he made him drink his brew, which tasted like crap.
  • Penthesilea hates Achilles, and she also hates girls he spends time with like Atalanta and Blake.
  • Like in canon, Yang's is messing with her hair.
  • Cinder does not like people who were born with powers, as she believes they didn't earn them. She also gets angry when Chloe calls her old.
  • Frankenstein does not like anyone talking about her original father, who abandoned her.
• The Bet:
  • Mercury challenges Gilgamesh to a match. If Mercury wins, they have to swap rooms. Gilgamesh says Mercury can offer him nothing, so he won't ask for anything if he wins except the satisfaction of victory. Gilgamesh wins.
  • Weiss and Oda Nobunaga face each other in a match. If Weiss wins, Nobunaga has to delete the game on her scroll. If Nobunaga wins, Weiss has to give her money. It ends in a draw when class runs out of time.
• Big Bad Ensemble: In addition to Cinder's group and by proxy Salem's faction, there exists another group intending to create "Alters" of the Heroic Spirits using Grimm pools and invade Apocrypha. Amongst them are Gilles de Rais, Victor Frankenstein, Carmilla, Arthur Alter, Darius III, Marcus Black, and their leader Guinevere.
• Blank White Void:
  • Ruby's Reality Marble. It is populated with Living Memory versions of people's lost loved ones.
  • Salem's Reality Marble is a black version. So far, its capabilities are unknown, but Salem was able to pull Cinder into it despite them being a world away for a private conversation.
• Blinded by the Light: During their sparring match, Jekyll reflects sunlight with his knife to blind Emerald.
• Blind Without 'Em: Penthesilea wears contact lenses, and when she loses them, glasses, and can barely see without them.
• Blood from the Mouth: Okita Souji coughs up blood after overexerting herself in her sparring match with Blake.
• The Bore: Nobody pays attention to William Shakespeare's lectures, except Weiss and Blake, because similar to Professor Port, he mostly quotes his plays instead of teaching.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: In Taiga Fujimura and Li Shuwen's class, Noble Phantasms are not allowed and everyone uses wooden swords and bows with dummy arrows instead. Oda Nobunaga thought it was stupid, but Taiga warns her that knowing how to fight without her Noble Phantasms might save her life one day. Nobunaga flounders, since she is not used to using a bow instead of guns.
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Lancelot gets very angry when he finds out Mash and Jaune are dating. He only starts to accept Jaune when he proves his worth during the invasion, and he still makes it clear he has his eye on him.
• Brain Bleach: Ushiwakamaru tells Ruby that Mercury is her brother, but Mercury doesn't know. When Mercury comments he thinks Ushiwakamaru is hot, Ruby almost throws up.
• Bridal Carry: When Archer and Cinder decide to have lunch at the von Einzbern mansion, Cinder complains that the walk is too far. In response, he picks her up and leaps to the house.
• Bully Hunter: Pyrrha challenges Gilgamesh to a fight after seeing him brutalize Mercury.
• Bullying a Dragon: After getting in a good hit on Enkidu during a sparring match, Mercury has the gall to taunt Gilgamesh about it, knowing Gil can't attack him because Gil is in the audience and the teachers Siegfried and Vlad are there to stop any interference. Gilgamesh nearly blows his top, until Enkidu recovers and takes Mercury down.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • As usual, Jaune. He's at first ecstatic to be a Saber like Weiss, only for Dr. Roman to point out almost all his stats are really low. When Team JNPR and their roommates decide to jog around the school, he runs out of breath, then gets run over by Nora and Frankenstein. Pyrrha does comment that Chaldea Academy is bigger than Beacon Academy, since Jaune has gotten used to running around Beacon.
  • Mercury gets owned by Gilgamesh every time he runs into him, and Emerald even records it one time. Then he runs into Jack the Ripper and gets scared out of his mind after seeing her Troubling Unchildlike Behavior. Then he ends up throwing up so much that he passes out and is sent back to the infirmary. When he gets owned by Bazett, he asks, "What did I do to deserve this!?"
• Bystander Syndrome:
  • Shirou Kotomine quickly figures out Cinder is up to no good and knows she has stolen half of the Fall Maiden's power. After demonstrating he can defeat her at any time, he decides to walk away and not report her, because she is no threat to the Church, so she is not his problem.
  • Many of the staff of Chaldea Academy know exactly who Cinder, Emerald, Mercury, and Neo really are, but decided they will only act if the group actually does a crime or prove themselves a threat to Apocrypha. Kiritsugu Emiya argues they should just arrest them right away so that they don't leave and become threats to the other kingdoms, but Kirei Kotomine points out the other kingdoms never helped them with their constant Grimm attacks, so why should they help them? To Kiritsugu's chagrin, Headmaster Zhuge Liang agrees with Kirei.
  • When Apocrypha is under attack by Guinevere's forces, Zhuge Liang calls General Ironwood and asks for some airships to help evacuate citizens. Ironwood refuses, saying Apocrypha has nothing to do with him and is a lost cause anyway. He instantly changes his mind with he finds out Glynda is in Apocrypha, but she calls him out on not wanting to help strangers and only wanting to help her.
• By the Hair: Penthesilea grabs Yang's hair and throws her across the room. Of course, this triggers Yang's Berserk Button.
• Cannot Spit It Out:
  • Nora cannot vocalize her feelings for Ren.
  • Both Jekyll and Hyde are afraid to ask Neo how she really feels about them.
  • Emerald is shy about revealing her feelings for Robin Hood.
• Cape Snag:
  • After their first fight ended in a draw, Oda Nobunaga tries to challenge Weiss to a rematch, but an annoyed Okita Souji grabs Nobunaga's cape and drags her out of the room.
  • During their fight, Archer grabs Ruby's cape and pulls it over her head to blind her.
• Celibate Hero:
  • Glynda says she is too dedicated to her duties as a teacher and Huntress to worry about finding a boyfriend. Eventually, she falls in love with Vlad.
  • Atalanta says she took a vow of chastity after breaking up with Achilles.
• Character Development:
  • On Francis Drake's advice, Emerald starts socializing and talking with others more often. She finds she actually enjoys it.
  • Artificially induced, but when Jaune changes to a Shielder, his personality changes so that he gets over his crush on Weiss.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Shinji Matou used to be on a team with Shirou Emiya, Rin Tohsaka, and Sakura Matou. He got expelled when everyone found out he had forged his papers.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Nora is most displeased when she finds out Ren's roommate is a girl, and even more displeased when Kiyohime hits on Ren.
  • Bazett and Medb are both attracted to Cu Chulainn. Not only do they not like each other, when Glynda fixes Cu Chulainn's coffee cup and he thanks her, they both give her a Death Glare. Medb is not happy when she finds out Scathach and Bazett both put tracking devices on Cu. Likewise, Bazett is not happy when Medb sacrifices herself to stop Cu Alter, because she is now all alone with a version of Cu.
  • Illyasviel von Einzbern gets jealous of how close Archer and Cinder are getting.
  • Semiramis tells Shirou Kotomine not to take Medb's class, afraid Medb will snatch him up.
• Cloth Fu: Astolfo takes off his cape and throws it over Cinder's head in an attempt to blind her. She slashes it in half, but it gives him an opening.
• Clothing Damage: The only damage Yang manages to inflict on Bazett is to burn her jacket.
• Comically Missing the Point: Astolfo steps out of the shower and happily greets Ruby, oblivious to her getting embarrassed. He walks over to his clothes and drops his Modesty Towel to put them on, and Ruby faints. He assumes she was just tired from her trip and carries her to bed.
• Composite Character:
  • Sieg from Fate/Apocrypha attended Chaldea Academy in the past and eventually grew up into Siegfried.
  • A species of humanoid Grimm resembles the Hassan-I-Sabbah Assassins. Another resembles Angra Mainyu.
  • Arthur Pendragon was turned into a woman to become Arturia Pendragon/Saber.
  • Downplayed in that Archer was always Shirou's future self, but here, Archer is simply Shirou having grown up much more cynical after Sakura's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Again, Downplayed, in that Ishtar used Rin's body as a host and the two were separate beings, but here, Ishtar is just Rin having changed her name.
  • Guinevere has some of Morgan le Fay's characteristics. She was Arthur's wife, then had an affair with Lancelot to give birth to Mash. But now she's obsessed with destroying Arturia and attempted to manipulate Mordred into killing her.
• Contrived Coincidence: Mash Kyrielight happened to be working on a report about polarity. Pyrrha's Semblance is Polarity and she's eager to help her one it.
• Convenient Misfire: During their fight, Archer Traces a copy of Crescent Rose, but due to his inexperience with using Structural Analysis on firearms, he made the barrel too narrow. Ruby notices this and pulls the trigger mid-swing, causing it to explode in his hand.
• Covert Pervert:
  • While shopping for new clothes, Ruby suddenly flashes back to seeing Astolfo naked and blushes.
  • It looks like Pyrrha was about to suggest looking under Enkidu's robe to determine their gender before stopping herself and blushing.
• Cruel to Be Kind: The reason why Bazett always attacks her students in sparring matches hard enough to send them to the infirmary is because she believes coddling them will only make them weaker. By forcing them to toughen up against her, she hopes it will reduce the chances that they will get themselves killed.
• Curb Stomp Cushion:
  • During their sparring match, Pyrrha manages to hold off the Gate of Babylon by using her magnetic Polarity Semblance. As soon as Gilgamesh figures out what she is doing, he switches to weapons not made of iron or steel and defeats her.
  • During their sparring match, Blake manages to catch Chiron off guard with her Shadow Clones, but it's all over when he manages to grab her.
  • Pyrrha and Mercury have a two on one sparring match with Enkidu. Though Enkidu easily takes them down, they manage to surprise Enkidu a few times and Mercury even gets a good hit in.
• Curse Cut Short:
  • Chloe is about to call the tattoo on Cinder's back a tramp stamp when Cinder hand gags her and says she is too young to be using words like that.
  • After Astolfo gets a broken pelvis, Da Vinci jokes that it is a good thing Nightingale is not the school nurse anymore or else she would have amputated his di- Dr. Roman cuts her off.
• Cuteness Proximity: Ruby is very happy to meet Astolfo's Hippogriff and Medusa's Pegasus.
• Cynicism Catalyst: Shirou Emiya went from an idealistic boy who dreamed of becoming a Hero of Justice to the cold Archer when Sakura Matou died and he finally realized you can't save everyone.
• Dark and Troubled Past:
  • Archer has a strained relationship with his father Kiritsugu, who tried to mold him into a Hero of Justice, and then something terrible happened to his original team. It slowly began to fall apart, starting with Shinji being expelled when it was revealed he forged his papers, followed by Sakura sacrificing herself so Shirou could save Rin, and ending with Rin leaving Chaldea after the death of her sister.
  • Kiyohime remembers a previous boyfriend leaving her for another. She chased them, and the village the couple were in was completely wiped out by the Grimm, including them.
  • Frankenstein remembers a man she loved rejecting her and calling her a freak.
  • Mercury suffered under an abusive father until his father died.
• Death from Above:
  • Ruby accidentally defeats Cu Chulainn by summoning her locker all the way from Beacon. The locker lands on him and knocks him out.
  • Drake temporarily kills Heracles by dropping her ship on him.
• Death Glare:
  • Bazett and Medb give these to each other and to Glynda due to their jealousy over Cu Chulainn. Bazett's glare manages to terrify the normally unflappable Glynda, who quickly leaves the room.
  • Emerald glares at Mercury when she mistakes him for a pedophile because of his interactions with Jack the Ripper.
• Death World: Scathach describes the Land of Shadows as a realm that is hostile to all life, including Grimm.
• Deceptive Disciple: Cinder takes the combat classes and gets Archer to try to teach her how to Trace weapons fully intending to use her new skills for evil purposes. However, Archer is aware she is up to no good, but decides to teach her anyway.
• Decomposite Character:
  • The "Alters" are their own individuals, albeit Grimm Evil Knockoffs to their normal versions.
  • Carmilla and Elizabeth Bathory are their own individuals, with Carmilla detesting Elizabeth.
• Deer in the Headlights: Emerald freezes up in fear when Heracles charges at her. Drake has to knock her out of the way.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: Mordred dislocates her own shoulder to escape from Medusa's hold. Medusa can't believe she would go that far for victory.
• Despair Event Horizon: After his lover went missing, Lancelot willingly became a Berserker, losing most of his ability to speak and reason, just to make the pain go away.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: When Ruby and Yang have to fight Cu Chulainn and Bazett Fraga McRemitz, Astolfo tells them they should be fine, then gets embarrassed when he says out loud that Bazett often leaves her opponents with broken bones.
• Dies Wide Open: Jeanne and Pyrrha find a woman who had been killed by the Grimm. Jeanne solemnly closes her eyes for her and prays.
• Disappeared Dad: Mordred's father is missing.
• Discard and Draw: The Sakura Matou inside Ruby's Reality Marble removes Cinder's Grimm powers and makes her body immune to Grimm essence. In exchange, Cinder's Fall Maiden powers become stronger.
• Disney Death: Frankenstein uses Blasted Tree to temporarily kill Heracles and apparently dies from the effort. Fortunately, Nora revives her with electricity.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Gilgamesh's reaction to Mercury entering his room without his permission is to blow his leg off. Later, Gilgamesh apologizes for beating Mercury up and offers him some wine. When Mercury says he doesn't drink, Gilgamesh pulls some strings so that Mercury has to sleep in a room that is basically a glorified closet.
  • Nero wants to kick Ruby's ass for making rose petals and having Rose as a last name.
  • Guinevere wants to destroy Arturia and everyone she loves for leaving her.
• Distracted by the Sexy: When Shirou Kotomine's shirt is destroyed by an attack, Semiramis gets so distracted that she drops and breaks her cup.
• Does Not Know His Own Strength:
  • Chloe von Einzbern pulls a rope that rings the von Einzbern mansion's doorbell too hard and it breaks. Archer fixes it.
  • Iskandar gives Glynda and later Astolfo a hug and hurts them by squeezing too hard.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul":
  • Archer doesn't like being called Shirou Emiya. So far, he only allows his mother and sister to call him Shirou.
  • Attila likes to be called Altera instead.
  • The Count of Monte Cristo doesn't like being called Edmond Dantes.
  • Ishtar doesn't like being called Rin Tohsaka.
• Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: Mercury warns Emerald not to antagonize Jack the Ripper, and he goes out of his way to appease her, as he feels she can easily kill them.
• Don't Call Me "Sir":
  • Francis Drake tells her students they can call her Drake, not Professor.
  • Scathach tells people to call her by her name instead of "Professor", because she retired and is not a professor anymore.
• The Door Slams You: Ushiwakamaru opens a door in Mercury's face.
• Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: Medb decides if she can't be with Cu Chulainn, she'll settle for Cu Alter.
• Double Knockout: Yang and Penthesilea knock each other out at the same time in their match.
• The Dreaded: The students are terrified of Bazett Fraga McRemitz for how brutal she is in combat, even Mordred, Gilgamesh, and Archer.
• Dr. Jerk: Caren Hortensia, the school nurse, bluntly tells Mercury that the only reason why she treated him was because she was bored, and she steals his ice cream. Later, she gives Jaune a checkup and says he's boring because there is nothing wrong with him and mocks him for having low stats. When Jaune decides to change his Class from Saber to Shielder, she deliberately doesn't warn him the process is extremely painful, and uses his Class Card as a coaster for her drink.
• Ear Ache:
  • Jeanne shares an embarrassing story of a time Jaune tried to get his ear pierced, but it got infected.
  • Kato Danzo uses a wind attack so strong it bursts Mercury's eardrums.
  • Marie Antoinette pulls Astolfo's ear when he accuses Weiss of not caring about Ruby, saying that was uncalled for.
• Emotion Eater: Salem says she is able to sense and feed on Archer's anger and self-loathing over Sakura's death even through they are in different regions and use that to create Grimm.
• Epic Fail: When Oda Nobunaga tries to fire an arrow, she uses improper technique, so the arrow only travels about a foot before falling.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: Nora does not like being in Moriarty's math class. She tries to use the fact that she saved his daughter Frankenstein's life to get an automatic A, but he tells her while he is grateful, she's not getting off that easily.
• Evil Knockoff: The "Alters", beings created from a bacteria found in Grimm Pools whenever someone touches it. A mysterious group intends to use them to invade Chaldea.
  • Jaune falls into a pool, creating Jaune Alter. Jaune Alter is more ruthless than Jaune, able to wield Siegfried's blade Balmung, possesses a Healing Factor that will regrow him From a Single Cell, and required Gawain to actually end him.
  • A lobotomized Arthur Alter serves as the servant to the group leader Guinevere.
  • In an attempt to study the affects of the bacteria, Jeanne touches it and creates Jeanne Alter, who Da Vinci shortly after nicknames Jalter. She's left imprisoned in Chaldea's research department as Dr. Roman and Da Vinci study her.
  • Guinevere's forces later make Alters of Blake, Ren, Cu Chulainn, Archer, Okita Souji, and Medusa. Victor Frankenstein has also created an evil version of Fran whose purpose is to surpass and destroy the original.
  • Carmilla is revealed to be an Alter of Elizabeth Bathory. Carmilla created Dracula and Darius from samples of Vlad and Iskandar's blood.
• Evil vs. Evil: Salem opposes Guinevere's forces because they have experimented on the Grimm and created the Alters, which are not under Salem's control.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: In a fight between Weiss and Illya, Weiss throws her sword Myrtenaster, but Illya casually dodges it and mocks her. However, Weiss can control Myrtenaster even when she isn't holding it, so from its position on the ground, it creates ice that slowly travels along the ground until it reaches Illya from behind and freezes her feet in place.
• Extremity Extremist: Cleopatra uses a kick based fighting style, so she doesn't risk breaking a nail.
• Eyepatch of Power:
  • Cinder ends up having to wear an eyepatch to give her eye time to heal.
  • Musashi wears one after losing her eye.
• Eye Scream:
  • Cinder bursts a blood vessel in her eye from the strain of using Caladbolg.
  • Jaune Arc slashes Jaune Alter across the eyes. He screams and thrashes for about a minute before his Healing Factor fixes them.
  • Penthesilea slashes out Neo's left eye. Fortunately, Jaune is able to heal it.
  • Cinder's mother, Ella, lost an eye in a Grimm attack.
  • Adam Taurus slashes out Musashi's eye.
• Facepalm:
  • Weiss does this when Ruby, being her lovably dorky self, botches introducing herself to Marie Antoinette.
  • Mordred and Astolfo do this when Ruby attempts to charge Bazett despite being unarmed and dizzy from blood loss.
  • Atalanta does this when her group runs into Penthesilea, who hates them for associating with Achilles.
• Face Your Fears: Weiss overcomes her fear of skeletons when Nobunaga summons a giant flaming skeleton in their rematch.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Edmond Dantes claims that he was once imprisoned and tortured, and his rage at his injustice fuels his strength. While he is rather powerful, Cleopatra reveals he had a normal life and made up that story to give himself more street cred.
• Feed It a Bomb: Yang deals with Cleopatra's snake summon by throwing a grenade Kairi Sisigou had given her into its mouth. The explosion doesn't destroy it, but weakens it enough for Yang and Mordred to defeat.
• Foil:
  • Oda Nobunaga is an aristocrat like Weiss but has Ruby's color scheme and personality. Her partner Okita Souji is a plebeian like Ruby but has Weiss' color scheme and personality.
  • Like Yang and Ruby, Mordred and Mash are half-sisters with missing parents. Mordred and Yang are similar in age and are both Blood Knights with a goal of finding their parent, but Mordred is more cynical. Mash and Ruby are similar in age, but Mash is less naive.
• Forced Transformation: Jaune Alter uses magic to turn Siegfried into a seemingly mindless Grimm Dragon. Only he eventually manages to Resist the Beast.
• For Want Of A Nail: The fic is set in between Volume's 1 and 2, and the events in it change some things going forward.
  • Mercury repeatedly having his legs damaged thanks to Gilgamesh and Bazett leads to the Internal Reveal that his legs are prosthetics.
  • Several of the Beacon students have their weapons converted into Noble Phantasms, binding them to their souls.
  • Nora's hammer, Magnhild, is destroyed while fighting Heracles. Moriarty gifts her with "Skewered Plasma Blade: The Thunder Blade of Impalement" as a replacement, leading her to change classes from Berserker to Saber, and her fighting style with it.
  • In canon, Nora and Ren have a Relationship Upgrade after their battle in Kuroyuri concludes, the two all but stated to be Together-Together. Here, Ren undergoes Love at First Sight with Kiyohime, and thanks to some prodding from Robin Hood, confesses to her. When Fran breaks the news to Ren that Nora was in love with him and overheard, he tries to talk to her, but she responds by saying I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and tells him its fine if he likes Kiyohime. Its unclear if this is full on Ship Sinking or if something else is in the Class Cards.
  • Jaune deciding to change his class from Saber to Shielder alters his personality somewhat, causing him to simply lose interest in Weiss rather than let her go to pursue Neptune like in Canon.
  • Pyrrha has her spear, Milo, reforged by Scathach into a divine weapon named "Gae Akuno".
  • In canon, Pyrrha's feelings for Jaune existed till the day she perished. Here, after nearly dying at the hands of Jaune Alter, she finds herself traumatized and can't help but see Jaune Alter when looking at Jaune. While she still considers him a good friend and teammate, she doesn't love him anymore. She instead hooks up with Karna.
  • In the end, everyone in Chaldea and Beacon becomes aware that Atlas has robots that look and act like people. Yang has Avalon, meaning if she loses her arm to Adam in the future, it won't be permanent. Mercury, Emerald, and Neo decide to defect from Salem and stay in Chaldea, while Roman Torchwick lays low for a while. Cinder got all of the Fall Maiden's power and returns to Salem and Chloe joins her. Nora and Kiyohime decide to trade schools so Kiyohime can stay with Ren and Nora can stay with Fran. Students from Chaldea are allowed to join the Vytal Festival. All of this means if the invasion of Vale and Beacon happens in this timeline, things will go very differently.
  • Musashi single-handedly foils the White Fang's attempt to blow up the train tunnels to let the Grimm into Vale, and gets Adam arrested.
• Freudian Excuse: The reason why Cinder is so obsessed with power is because when she was a child, her family was attacked by Grimm. They were completely helpless and would have died if a Huntress hadn't shown up. She wants to never be helpless like that again.

Tropes: G to M

• Gender Bender: Ironically, Mordred's father in this fic started out as the male Arthur Pendragon before being turned into a woman.
• The Ghost: Medea ocassionally mentions her husband and stepson, who never appear in person. Medea says her husband is currently traveling the world. Though they are never named, her husband and stepson are implied to be Souichirou Kuzuki and Issei Ryuudou.
• Give Me a Sword:
  • Archer loans Cinder his swords Caladbolg and Kanshou when she starts to run low on Dust.
  • Mordred throws Yang her sword Clarent during Yang's fight with Oda Nobunaga.
  • When Ember Celica is destroyed, Kairi gives Yang his shotgun.
• Giving Them the Strip: After Pyrrha learns how to affect non magnetic metals like gold with her Polarity, in her rematch with Gilgamesh, she is able to seize him by using Polarity on his golden armor. Gilgamesh escapes by dematerializing his armor, leaving him shirtless.
• The Glasses Gotta Go: Jekyll discards his glasses whenever he turns into Hyde, and retrieves them when he returns to normal.
• A Glass in the Hand: Nora crushes her cup when she finds out Ren's new roommate is a girl. She crushes another one when she sees how attractive Kiyohime is. She crushes another one when Kiyohime leaves declaring Ren is hers, not Nora's.
• Golem: Chaldea is guarded by several stone and clay golems, made by Solomon ibn Gabirol, the Head of Security. Glynda becomes interested in learning how they work and are made, believing having them can bolster Beacon's security.
• Go Out with a Smile:
  • Jaune Alter dies smiling when Gawain complements his bravery and promises to remember him.
  • Diarmuid dies smiling when Mordred finds him, considering himself blessed that he was able to see his daughter one last time.
  • Arturia gives Mordred a smile before she sacrifices herself to save Mordred and Yang.
• Got Me Doing It: Mordred ends up making a "heartache" pun and groans Yang's habit rubbed off on her.
• Groin Attack:
  • Upon finding out Astolfo once dropped his towel in front of Ruby, Yang angrily hits him in the groin so hard she breaks his pelvis! Astolfo later suffers another one when Iskandar drops him onto his horse Bucephalus' saddle.
  • Mordred beats Jaune in a fight by punching him in the groin. Since Lancelot was linked with him at the time, it takes him out too.
  • A racist guard tries to abuse Adam in prison. Adam punches him in the groin.
• Handshake Refusal: Glynda refuses to shake Nikola Tesla's hand because of his arrogance.
• Happily Adopted:
  • Kairi Sisigou adopted Mordred after her father disappeared.
  • James Moriarty adopted Frankenstein after her father abandoned her.
  • Kiritsugu and Irisviel adopted Archer/Shirou.
  • Reika Rikudou adopted Nursery Rhyme.
  • In the epilogue, Mercury adopts Jack the Ripper and Nursery Rhyme.
• Healing Factor: Jaune Alter's is powerful enough to let him regenerate from a skeleton.
• Healing Hands: Jaune develops this ability a lot earlier than in canon.
• Heal It With Fire: Edmond Dantes seals his wounds shut with a fire blast.
• Heel Realization: Thanks to the bonds they form in Chaldea and the kindness they're shown, Emerald and Mercury begin regretting their involvement in Cinder's plans, and can't help but feel conflicted as to what to do.
• Heroic Bastard: Mordred is eventually revealed to be the illegitimate daughter of Arturia Pendragon and Diarmuid Ua Duibhne. While abrasive, she is a true hero.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Nero comically goes into one when she sees Ruby's Class Card, which says her rose petal creating ability is Rank EX, while Nero's is only Rank A.
  • Nora goes into one after Ren chooses Kiyohime. She snaps out of it just as Heracles attacks.
• Heroic RRoD:
  • The strain of using Caladbolg takes a lot out of Cinder and makes her eye bleed.
  • Jaune Alter can use Balmung's power after stealing it from Siegfried, but when he tries to use it after getting critically wounded by Gawain and his Healing Factor compromised, his body starts to fall apart.
  • Using her Reality Marble takes a lot out of Ruby.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Seven years ago, Shirou grabbed Sakura with one arm and an unconscious Rin with the other as the two girls were about to fall into a pit full of Grimm. His arms were injured so he couldn't pull both of them up, so Sakura willingly let go of his hand to save him and Rin.
  • Nora attempts one by getting Heracles to chase her so the others can get away. When he destroys her hammer, she steels herself to die, content that Ren is safe, only for Frankenstein to arrive and pull her own sacrifice by blowing Heracles and herself up with Blasted Tree. Fortunately, Nora manages to revive her.
  • Medb tackles Cu Chulainn Alter to knock them both into the Gate of Skye and trap them in the Land of Shadows.
  • Arturia uses up all her energy to use Excalibur to save Mordred and Yang from Grimm.
• High School AU: Well, it's a school to teach you how to slay Grimm and defend the kingdoms, but the various Servants and other characters from Fate are students, teachers, and staff in Chaldea Academy.
• How Did You Know? I Didn't: Bazett breaks off Mercury's left leg and is surprised it was a prosthetic, shocking him that she would presumably use that much force on a real leg.
• How Do I Shot Web?: When Ruby activates her Reality Marble, she has no idea what just happened and has no control over it. It only disappears when she passes out from stress and exhaustion. Iskandar, who also has a Reality Marble, offers to train her to control it.
• How Is That Even Possible?:
  • When the Class Cards are created, Ruby wonders how the cards have images of them in their combat outfits and wielding their weapons.
  • Ruby wonders how Marie Antoinette's enormous hat stays balanced on her head.
  • Emerald asks how Kiyohime turns into a fire dragon. Francis Drake advises her not to think about it too hard.
  • When Glynda meets Iskandar, she wonders how the bulls that pull his chariot are able to fly.
  • When Francis Drake summons her ship, the RWBY characters ask her how she did that. She simply says she is a Rider, and Emerald says that didn't answer the question at all.
  • Francis Drake's class comes to an island and discover Berserker Heracles. They have no idea how he is still alive, since his legend is ancient.
  • Pyrrha asks this when Jaune Alter regenerates from a skeleton.
  • When Cinder's team finds out Marcus Black is still alive, they ask how can that be, given they saw Mercury set his corpse on fire.
• Human Hammer-Throw: After Cleopatra's snake gets weakened by a grenade, Mordred grabs its tail and swings it in circles, right into a punch from Yang, which defeats it.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: After hearing Weiss' description of Ruby, Nero insults Ruby and calls her immature. Weiss warns her only she is allowed to talk about Ruby that way.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Nobunaga starts her fight with Weiss with just her sword. When Weiss disarms her and thinks she's won, Nobunaga summons her multitude of guns.
• I Am X, Son of Y: Before they begin their duel, Achilles announces, "My name is Achilles, son of the hero Peleus." Yang responds, "My name is Yang Xiao Long, daughter of the hunter Taiyang."
• I Choose to Stay: When the exchange program is over, Nora, Mercury, Emerald, and Neo choose to stay in Chaldea Academy. Kiyohime goes to Beacon Academy to stay with Ren.
• Identical Stranger: Robin Hood looks like Roman Torchwick. Neo does a double take when she sees him, while Emerald wonders why she is attracted to him, since she hates Roman.
• Imagine Spot: Astolfo tells Ruby that since she is a Rider, she will get a mount soon. Ruby imagines herself riding a giant, winged version of her dog Zwei. Astolfo and Medusa get weirded out when Ruby starts staring into space, lost in her fantasy.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
  • During a sparring match, Cu Chulainn runs Ruby through with Gae Bolg. When Yang understandably calls him out on it, since the fight wasn't to the death, he says he deliberately missed her organs, and the infirmary can heal pretty much anything.
  • Mordred runs Edmond Dantes through with Clarent.
  • Vlad demonstrates his Kazikli Bey's ability to summon stakes anywhere on Karna and Arjuna. They are tough enough to survive stakes erupting from their bodies.
• Indirect Kiss: When Cu Chulainn trips and breaks his coffee cup, Medb tries to invoke this by offering hers. Naturally, she gets mad when Glynda simply fixes his cup.
• Indy Ploy: Drake believes in living life to the fullest and making things up as you go. Ruby and Astolfo also like to fight this way.
• I Need a Freaking Drink:
  • After sparring with Bazett (and it's heavily implied he lost), Gilgamesh gets some wine from the Gate of Babylon. Nero and Weiss join him, and Weiss pleases him with her knowledge of alcoholic beverages.
  • Zhuge Liang says maybe he should go drinking due to the stress of his responsibilities.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl:
  • Guy in this case. Astolfo is genuinely confused why Ruby fainted after seeing him naked.
  • Ushiwakamaru and Jack the Ripper both don't understand what is wrong with their incredibly revealing outfits.
• Insane Troll Logic: Penthesilea thinks that Achilles looks down on girls by flirting with them, and that him talking with other girls is his way of insulting her. Medusa thinks there is something wrong with her thought process.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • When Weiss asks Gilgamesh about his weapon collection, he says he has a treasure collection.
  • Edmond Dantes insists he be addressed as "The Count of Monte Cristo, The King of the Cavern, The Vengeance Grimm" every time. Nobody is willing to indulge him. He's willing to let Jeanne call him "Count".
  • Astolfo says he's not "annoying", he's "eccentric".
• Instant Expert:
  • After getting Crescent Rose turned into a Noble Phantasm, Ruby manages to summon it to her hand on the first try, amazing the others.
  • As Sabers have Riding Skill, Jaune is amazed that, despite never riding a horse before, he is able to control a horse and ride it.
  • Medea teaches Glynda some of her magic, and is amazed at how quickly she picks it up.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Frankenstein only speaks in grunts and growls. A few characters like Nora, Jekyll, Moriarty, Mash, and Mordred can understand her. Similarly, they can understand Lancelot.
• I Resemble That Remark!:
  • After meeting Kiyohime, Nora asks how it is possible a Berserker can look so cute. Frankenstein gets slightly offended, plus Nora herself perfectly fits that description.
  • Cu Chulainn wonders at Ruby being a Huntress at only 15. Glynda points out he's a teacher and he's pretty young himself.
• Irony:
  • Emerald has a crush on Robin Hood, who resembles Roman Torchwick, someone she despises. Mercury teases her mercilessly about it.
  • Shinji was expelled for forging papers when Jaune got accepted into Beacon by also forging his papers.
• I Shall Taunt You:
  • Kiyohime repeatedly taunts Nora about how she's gotten closer to Ren than Nora ever has.
  • Despite being on the same side, Kirei Kotomine regularly tries to provoke Kiritsugu Emiya. Kirei explains to Zhuge Liang that it's a game, and if Kiritsugu snaps, he wins.
• Is This a Joke?: Nero angrily yells this when she finds out Ruby's last name is Rose.
• It Amused Me: Despite suspecting Cinder is up to no good, Archer decides to teach her how to Trace weapons because he's interested in if it is possible for her to learn and he wants to see what will happen if she gains it.
• It Can Think: The humanoid variety of Grimm can learn to fight like trained warriors. Jaune Alter can speak and cast spells.
• I Thought Everyone Could Do That: Mash is mystified when she finds out Jaune's sword doesn't have any special abilities.
• It Must Be Mine!: Cinder's plan is to make herself more powerful by acquiring unique abilities like Archer's Tracing. She believes she is entitled to have every power. After seeing it, she becomes obsessed with gaining Unlimited Blade Works or a similar Reality Marble.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy:
  • After being moved by Frankenstein's words, Kiyohime asks Ren to patch things up with Nora, but Nora ultimately gives Ren her blessing to be with Kiyohime. She comments that Kiyohime was right about one thing, Ren doesn't belong to her, and she is happy if he is happy.
  • Achilles says while he wants him and Atalanta to start dating again, he wouldn't mind if she gets together with someone else, as long as she is happy.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: Archer makes fun of Cu Chulainn for losing to a little girl like Ruby. He protests he was winning until he got blindsided by her flying locker, but Archer tells him not to make excuses.
• I Work Alone: When facing Enkidu in a two on one match, Pyrrha attempts to coordinate with Mercury, but he sneers and says he'll fight in his own way. The only time he manages to hit Enkidu is by taking advantage of Enkidu being distracted by Pyrrha.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Jaune gets excited when he finds out one of his teachers is Gawain, a warrior he admired growing up.
• Kung-Fu Sonic Boom: When Bazett catches Yang's punch, the shockwave cracks the wall.
• Lame Pun Reaction:
  • When Yang meets Mordred, Yang says she should be glad her name isn't "Lessdred". Mordred slumps over after hearing that.
  • Kairi Sisigou demonstrates his bullets made from human finger bones. Yang says as her teacher, she hopes he gives her a few "pointers". Mordred groans.
• The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort: In sparring matches, the RWBY characters often confidently stand still, believing their Aura will protect them, only to be shocked when a Noble Phantasm wounds them anyway. Bazett even scolds Yang for being over reliant on her Aura, after breaking through Yang's with a single punch.
• Leeroy Jenkins: After Ruby gets impaled, everyone advises her to quit and go to the infirmary, but she stubbornly continues the match and even tries to charge Bazett unarmed.
• Let Us Never Speak of This Again:
  • After Jeanne tells a story of the time Jaune tried to pierce his ear and it got infected, Jaune reminds her they had agreed to never talk about that.
  • Jaune falls into some black goop, and tells Pyrrha and Jeanne not to tell anybody.
  • After Mercury gets his ass kicked by Bazett, he asks Cinder and Archer not to tell Emerald.
  • Musashi tells about a time Cleopatra flirted with a man online and decided to meet him face to face, but he turned out to be really fat. Cleo angrily said they had agreed to never talk about that.
• Little Miss Badass: Team Prisma consists of Illyasviel von Einzbern, Chloe von Einzbern, Nursery Rhyme, and Jack the Ripper. Despite their young ages, they are already trusted with Grimm hunting missions.
• Living Memory: Ruby's Reality Marble allows her to summon forth personified memories of those that were lost to whoever visits it. For Ruby, it's her mother Summer. For Lobo, his mate Blanca. For Archer, it's Sakura. For Enkidu, it's Wolf. For Nero, it's Hakuno Kishinami. After Astolfo dies, he is added to it.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Iskandar is apparently the only teacher who didn't know they would have exchange students and a substitute teacher, because he was busy with a Grimm killing mission.
  • Jeanne and the rest of their family don't know Jaune faked his way into Beacon Academy. Jaune makes Pyrrha promise not to tell her. She finds out anyway thanks to her status as a Ruler, but is stopped from doing anything about it after Jaune displays his conviction while fighting his Alter.
• Long-Lost Relative: Ushiwakamaru is Mercury's sister. He was too young to remember her and their parents divorcing.
• Lovable Alpha Bitch: Among Team EXTELLA's Alpha Bitch members, Elizabeth tends to be the nicest of the bunch, both striking up a friendship with Ruby easily, and being less disrespectful to Glynda than Nero and Tamamo. She still has her moments of bitchiness, but not as many as her teammates.
• Love at First Sight:
  • Emerald is immediately smitten with Robin Hood when she meets him.
  • Neo and Henry Jekyll seem to hit it off as soon as they meet.
  • Ren confides with Robin Hood that he fell in love with Kiyohime as soon as he met her.
• Love Father, Love Son: Jaune Arc confesses that he had a crush on Guinevere when he was a kid. He eventually starts dating her daughter, Mash.
• Love Hurts:
  • Nora decides to follow Emerald's advice and finally tell Ren about her feelings for him. Unfortunately, she walks in on Ren and Kiyohime confessing and kissing. Poor Nora runs away and cries, with Emerald and Frankenstein trying to comfort her.
  • Nero reveals that she had been in love with Hakuno Kishinami, but never told him because he was Altera's boyfriend. Then before she had the chance to tell him, he got killed by the Grimm.
  • Tamamo no Mae was also in love with Hakuno.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Discussed when Jekyll wonders if Neo loves him or his other personality Mr. Hyde. Emerald says he should just man up and ask her directly. Eventually, Emerald asks her for him, and Neo texts that she loves both of them before kissing him.
• Mama Bear: The apparition of Summer Rose attacks Cinder for threatening Ruby.
• Man Bites Man:
  • When Frankenstein jumps on Heracles' back and tries to choke him, he bites her arm and crushes it.
  • Penthesilea is prone to biting her opponents.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: The reason why Victor Frankenstein hates Fran is because his wife died giving birth to her.
• Meaningful Rename:
  • After Waver Velvet became Headmaster of Chaldea Academy, he changed his name to Zhuge Liang. Iskandar, his partner from back when he was a student, still calls him Waver.
  • Rin Tohsaka changed her name to Ishtar and Shirou Emiya changed his name to Archer because they wanted to get away from their pasts.
  • Blake Alter changes her name to Nikushimi, which means "Hatred".
  • Medusa Alter changes her name to Gorgon.
• Metronomic Man Mashing:
  • Yang grabs Cleopatra's ankle and attempts this, but Cleo blocks her first impact with the ground with her hands and kicks Yang away with her other foot.
  • Bazett grabs Mercury's ankle and does this to him.
• Midfight Weapon Exchange: During their fight, Neo and Hyde end up trading their umbrella and knife. Hyde eventually takes his knife back.
• Missing Mom:
  • Mash's mother/Lancelot's lover is missing. Guinevere eventually explains to Arturia that she tried to move on from Arturia leaving her by marrying Lancelot and having Mash. Then she realized she did not love them at all, so she left and dedicated her life to getting revenge on Arturia.
  • Mercury says he never met his mother. This is because his and Ushiwakamaru's parents divorced when he was too young to remember. Their mother eventually died of an illness.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Emerald gets very angry when the little girl Jack the Ripper, who had gotten attached to Mercury, hugs him while wearing her incredibly revealing outfit.
• Morality Pet: Though Lancelot is now a mindless Berserker, he still recognizes his daughter Mash and calms down when she is around.
• Mundane Utility: When Gilgamesh destroys Mercury's prosthetic legs, Archer uses Tracing to make him new ones. He later uses it to repair the damage Chloe does to the von Einzbern mansion.
• Murder the Hypotenuse:
  • When Guinevere finds out Diarmuid slept with Arturia and is Mordred's father, she has Arthur Alter kill him.
  • Cinder has BB murdered and tries to kill the Sakura inside Ruby's Reality Marble because she is tired of Archer mourning Sakura and wants him to move on.
• My God, You Are Serious!: When Ruby confirms she did drop a locker on Cu Chulainn's head, a surprised Archer comments he should apologize to him because he thought Cu was just making up excuses on why he lost to her.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • On one of Kiritsugu Emiya's first missions, he arrived too late to save a town from a Grimm attack. He nearly gave up hope, until he found five year old Shirou had survived, hiding in the rubble. Kiritsugu quickly adopted him.
  • Archer's is failing to save Sakura Matou from being killed by Grimm.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits: After Jeanne and Edmond Dantes have a little chat and Jeanne leaves, Jaune confronts Edmond and angrily warns him to stop flirting with his sister. Edmond is completely bewildered and says he was not doing anything of the sort.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Many of Chaldea's teams are composed of friends and rivals from the various Fate series.
  • Medusa is a radio host in her spare time, a reference to the Fate/GUDAGUDA gag manga.
  • Kairi Sisigou is Mordred's adoptive father, which is basically what he became when he was her Master in Fate/Apocrypha.
  • Sakura Matou wielded Trishula, her weapon as Lancer Parvati in Fate/Grand Order.
  • The dress Elizabeth Bathory buys for Ruby is the dress Elizabeth wears in her 3rd Ascension art in Fate/Grand Order.
  • Siegfried is Jeanne's favorite teacher, a reference to the romance she shared with his Sieg self in Fate/Apocrypha.
  • Taiga Fujimura's class is in the infamous Taiga Dojo, complete with the students wearing gym clothes like Illya does.
  • Frankenstein using Blasted Tree on Heracles is modeled after the scene of her using it on Mordred in Fate/Apocrypha, including, "I'm. Taking. You. With. Me!"
  • Cinder ends up wearing an eyepatch, though unlike in RWBY, her eye is merely temporarily damaged instead of blinded.
  • Siegfried is turned into a Grimm Dragon, like when Sieg was turned into Fafnir at the end of Fate/Apocrypha.
  • Sasaki Kojiro is a security guard for Medea's home. He later gets to slay dragons.
  • James Moriarty is Frankenstein's adoptive father, like how he was obsessed with being her father in Fate/Grand Order. She even calls him "Papa".
  • Moriarty replaces Nora's destroyed weapon with Skewered Plasma Blade: The Thunder Blade of Impalement, which is Frankenstein's weapon when she is a Saber.
  • Tomoe Gozen is a human in this fic, but her video game avatar has her oni horns from Fate/Grand Order.
  • Chloe has a rune on her stomach that links her soul with another. Only it links her to Archer and not Illya.
  • Altera's ex-boyfriend was Hakuno Kishinami.
  • They mention a time Elizabeth Bathory wore skimpy swimsuit-like armor.
  • Penthesilea wears glasses, like in the Amazon CEO meme.
  • Atalanta looks after Jack the Ripper.
  • The outfits many of the characters wear for the party in "The First Culmination" are based on their Heroic Spirit Formal Dress.
  • Enkidu was once friends with a wolf named Wolf, referencing his Master in Fate/strange Fake.
  • Medb decides to make Cu Chulainn Alter her boyfriend since she can't have the real one.
  • Blake Alter's design and shape changing abilities are modelled on Atalanta Alter.
  • Penthesilea is seen sticking her feet into water with a far away look, making her look exactly like her 4th Ascension image.
  • Cleopatra had an online boyfriend who turned out to be really fat, referencing Julius Caesar.

Tropes: N to S

• Neck Snap: Mercury defeats his abusive father Marcus Black with a German Suplex that drops Marcus on his head and breaks his neck, paralyzing him from the neck down. Mercury decides to walk away instead of killing him. Marcus angrily tells him to come back and finish him off, but he accidentally moves his head and dies.
• Never Found the Body:
  • When Siegfried is seemingly murdered, his colleagues believe he is dead, but Kiritsugu says he'll only believe that when he sees a body. Sure enough, he's not dead, but kidnapped.
  • Drake dismissively says Heracles is dead because she nuked his island, despite Merlin pointing out she didn't see his body.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Mercury goads Gilgamesh into a fight by calling him a coward.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Archer says his mother Irisviel is no longer allowed near cars after the last time she drove one.
  • Mordred talks about a time Arturia dressed like Mysterious Heroine X for a party.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Before Jaune came along, Okita Souji was considered the weakest Saber in the school. She's still a master swordswoman who overwhelms Blake.
• The Nose Knows: Nitocris is a dog Faunus in this fic. She sniffs Yang and smells cat, because of her hanging out with Blake.
• Not Me This Time: When Salem explains to Cinder how Archer's anguish over Sakura's death benefited her, she quickly explains she had nothing to do with Sakura's death.
• Now That's Using Your Teeth!: Penthesilea catches Neo's sword with her teeth. However, Neo then yanks the sword out and it cuts the inside of her cheek.
• Oblivious to Love:
  • Ren doesn't notice how much his interactions with Kiyohime hurt Nora. He doesn't find out Nora likes him until Frankenstein, using a lot of effort and willpower to speak clearly, tells him. He is completely shocked.
  • Robin Hood doesn't understand why Emerald gets flustered around him.
  • Sasaki Kojiro attempts to flirt with Glynda, but she just walks past him without noticing what he said.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • The general reaction when a RWBY character gets wounded despite their Aura.
  • Blake gets scared when her Class Card identifies her as a Faunus. Fortunately, Dr. Roman tells her discrimination is not the norm in Apocrypha.
  • Emerald freaks out when Kiyohime turns into a flaming dragon and knocks Nora out with one blow and then when Henry Jekyll turns into Mr. Hyde, goes berserk, and attacks her faster than she can react.
  • Cinder when Shirou Kotomine reveals he knows she has the Fall Maiden's power and then holds his blades to her neck before she can react.
  • When Dr. Roman turns Crescent Rose into a Noble Phantasm, Ruby freaks out when it vanishes into thin air. He and Astolfo have to explain that it went into astral form and all she has to do is summon it.
  • Yang when Bazett catches her punch.
  • Yang when she thinks she might have to fight Martha, who is even buffer than Bazett. Fortunately, she doesn't have to.
  • Illyasviel when Chloe decides to test Cinder's prowess by firing an arrow at her without warning, as while Illya disliked her, she didn't want her dead. Cinder doesn't react in time, but Irisviel blocks the arrow.
  • Emerald encourages Nora to confess to Ren, and Nora leaves to do so. Emerald then runs into Robin Hood, who tells her he just encouraged Ren to confess to Kiyohime. A shocked Emerald then rushes over, but is too late.
  • Kiritsugu Emiya confronts Cinder and warns her that if she steps out of line, he'll shoot her with an Origin Bullet. Since she knows what those do (trying to block them with special abilities is pointless, and impact will cripple the target and leave them permanently unable to use special abilities), she's left shaken.
  • Drake's whole class when they are attacked by Berserker Heracles.
  • Archer, Cinder, Astolfo, and Cu Chulainn when Ruby involuntarily uses her Reality Marble, and again when the apparition of Summer Rose attacks.
  • Gawain, Jaune, Jeanne, Pyrrha, and Mash when the Grimm Dragon attacks.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Commented on when Yang gets slightly confused because Jaune and Jeanne's names are pronounced the same way. The siblings comment it used to confuse them too.
  • Cinder gets weirded out when she meets Shirou Kotomine, since he looks similar to and shares a name with Shirou Emiya. He shrugs and says she can call him Amakusa if she wants.
  • Tamamo no Mae has several sisters also named Tamamo, like Tamamo Cat.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Penthesilea is obsessed with defeating Achilles, and gets really angry when Yang beats him in a fight.
• Operation: Jealousy: Achilles flirts with Blake to make his real crush Atalanta jealous. Judging by her reaction, it is working. He later reveals to Ren and Robin Hood that he flirts with many girls in hope that he clicks with one of them, or it makes Atalanta so jealous that she wants him again.
• Organ Dodge:
  • Cu Chulainn is skilled enough to impale Ruby without hitting any of her organs.
  • When Mordred impales Edmond Dantes, she says she made sure to miss all his organs, which is amazing considering how large Clarent is.
• Other Me Annoys Me: Jaune Alter thinks Jaune Arc is a wimp and an idiot. Jalter thinks the same way about Jeanne.
• Palatial Sandcastle: Nora and Frankenstein end up building a sand castle that is over 15 feet tall.
• Pet the Dog: After Archer and Cinder beat Ruby and Astolfo, though she sounds condescending when she says it, Cinder suggests Archer show Ruby Unlimited Blade Works to cheer her up. He doesn't get a chance to, as Ruby out of nowhere activates her own Reality Marble.
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Oda Nobunaga is constantly on her scroll, even in class. She seriously pisses of Okita Souji by looking at her scroll instead of her match with Blake.
• Please Put Some Clothes On:
  • Mercury and Emerald are shocked when they meet Ushiwakamaru and try to get her to put something over her skimpy armor, but she claims it is her regular outfit. They are shocked again when they run into Jack the Ripper and she also claims her vest and thong is her regular outfit.
  • Sherlock Holmes asks Ozymandias to put a shirt on, but he refuses.
  • After Gilgamesh's second fight with Pyrrha that left him shirtless, Enkidu asks him to put something on. Yang lustily says he's perfect as he is.
• Poor Communication Kills: When Mercury tries to enter his assigned room, Gilgamesh mistakes him for a trespasser and brutalizes him. It's only after Mercury is taken to the infirmary that Dr. Roman sends Gilgamesh a message about him getting a new roommate. Gilgamesh then apologizes and says Mercury will be welcome when he recovers.
• The Power of Hate: As an Avenger, Edmond Dantes is strengthened by negative emotions. The flames he produces are described as hate embodied.
• Power Parasite:
  • Chloe has a rune on her stomach that lets her borrow a portion of Archer's powers.
  • Nero's Reality Marble siphons her opponent's strength into her.
• Pretender Diss:
  • While Cinder is absolutely amazed by Unlimited Blade Works, Gilgamesh mocks it because all the weapons are copies. Like in Fate/Stay Night, Gilgamesh calls Archer "Faker".
  • Amakusa mocks the shape changing weapons of the RWBY cast. He says real weapons like his katana are for killing, while their weapons are just for showing off. Of course, Ruby doesn't take kindly to that remark.
• Psychic Nosebleed: When their group is attacked by Berserker Heracles, Emerald uses her illusion Semblance to render him unable to see them, but the effort causes her nose to bleed and the illusion to start failing. Fortunately, Ren relieves some of her burden with his own Semblance of suppressing negative emotion.
• Punch Catch: In a sparring match, Bazett effortlessly catches Yang's punch, unfazed by the flames Yang produces from her body. Then she punches back with her free hand and knocks Yang out.
• Really Gets Around: Medb has seduced many men, including several students.
• Red Baron:
  • Gilgamesh is called the "King of Heroes".
  • Arthur Pendragon is called the "King of Knights".
  • Mordred is called the "Son of the King of Knights", even though she is a girl. In the epilogue, she is called the "Knight of Rebellion".
  • Iskandar is called the "King of Conquerors".
  • Oda Nobunaga is called the "Grimm Archer".
  • Okita Souji is called "Sakura Saber".
  • Nero Claudius is called the "Empress of Roses".
  • Attila/Altera is called the "King of Combat".
  • After Weiss manages to impress Gilgamesh, he calls her the "Queen of White". Weiss thinks it is a lot better nickname than "Ice Queen".
  • Gawain is called the "Knight of the Sun".
  • Thomas Alva Edison is called the "King of Inventors".
  • Ozymandias is called the "King of Kings".
  • Merlin is called the "Magus of Flowers".
  • Glynda is called the "Genius of the Battlefield".
  • Heracles is called the "Immortal Great Hero".
  • In the epilogue, Nora is called the "Queen of the Castle".
  • In the epilogue, Ruby asks for the title "Summer Rose" so that people will remember her mother's name.
• Redemption Rejection: Mash offers to forgive Guinevere for abandoning her and says it is not to late to help stop the invasion she caused. Guinevere flatly says she never loved her and then tries to kill her.
• Related in the Adaptation:
  • Mash is the daughter of Lancelot and Guinevere.
  • Reika Rikudou is Jack the Ripper's mother and also adopted Nursery Rhyme.
  • Not familial, but Kirei Kotomine has taken Amakusa Shirou as his apprentice in the church, hence why he bears the name Kotomine.
  • Mordred is the daughter of Arturia and Diarmuid.
  • Fran is Victor Frankenstein's biological daughter, rather than his creation.
  • Cross series wise:
    • Jeanne is Jaune's older sister.
    • Ushikawamaru is Mercury's sister. Mercury is unaware of the connection however, as he was too young to remember her and his mother leaving his father Marcus through a divorce.
• Resist the Beast: When Siegfried is turned into a Grimm Dragon, he struggles to resist his urges to kill everything. This ends up saving his life as it allows Gawain and Lancelot to look into his eyes and recognize him, so they incapacitate him instead of killing him.
• Revenge by Proxy:
  • Guinevere hates Arturia and wants to kill her, but she tells Arturia that it is not enough to just kill her. First, she wants Arturia to suffer by killing everyone she loves, namely everyone in the Kingdom of Apocrypha.
  • Penthesilea attacks Ruby in an attempt to hurt Yang.
• Right Makes Might: Martha believes fighting for a righteous cause equals true strength, and resolves to teach this to her students.
• Rouge Angles of Satin: The author often mixes words like "from" and "form", "grabbed" and "gabbed", etc.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Altera is obsessed with destroying the Grimm because they destroyed her hometown and killed her boyfriend.
• Running Gag: Mercury getting his legs blown off by other students. It happens so frequently Archer has to make multiple copies of the prosthetics for the next time someone breaks them. Emerald finds it hilarious, Mercury does not.
• Say It with Hearts: When the mute Neo describes Henry Jekyll to Mercury and Emerald via text message, the message has a heart emoticon, a sign she indeed likes him.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Gilgamesh pays the school so he can skip certain classes he doesn't like.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Jeanne explains that due to constant Grimm attacks, many of Apocrypha's citizens choose to move to other kingdoms. The ones who stay typically become warriors.
  • Rin Tohsaka abandoned the school some time after the death of her sister Sakura Matou.
  • Glynda quickly leaves the room after Bazett and Medb both glare at her.
  • After Heracles demonstrates Resurrective Immortality, Drake's class immediately retreats from the island.
  • For some reason, when Ushiwakamaru gets a good look at Mercury's face after chatting with him and Emerald for a few minutes, she becomes scared and runs away. Its because Mercury is her brother, and while he didn't recognize her, she did recognize him, and was too nervous to admit their relationship.
  • Due to being embarrassed that she confessed she had a crush on Edmond Dantes and being exhausted, Jeanne Alter escapes from the Invasion of Chaldea on a dragon.
• Secret-Keeper: After accidentally blabbing a bit in front of Ruby, Ushiwakamaru tells her that Mercury is her brother, and asks Ruby not to tell him.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: Jeanne figures out Jaune faked his way into Beacon Academy. She tells Pyrrha, but not Jaune, while trying to decide what to do with this information.
• Seen It All: Jack the Ripper introduces Mercury and Emerald to Nursery Rhyme, a book that turns into a girl. While Mercury is shocked, Emerald says she has seen so many crazy things already that it doesn't faze her.
• Serious Business: Edison and Tesla constantly argue over whether direct current or alternating current is better for electronics.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl:
  • Medb wears her lingerie-like outfit from the game. When a shocked Glynda protests, she smugly says she's the biology teacher and she uses her flawless body in her lessons.
  • Ozymandias is a male example in that he always goes shirtless because he wants people to gaze upon his physically perfect body.
  • Da Vinci casually says she likes being naked and she doesn't use a Modesty Towel when she bathes.
• Share the Male Pain: Mordred, Cleopatra, Nitocris, and Tomoe Gozen (who are all girls) wince in sympathy when Yang hits Astolfo in the groin so hard it breaks his pelvis. Achilles, Robin Hood, and Ren wince when they are told about this. Jaune winces too.
• She Is All Grown Up: When they meet the teacher Siegfried, a handsome, rugged man mountain, Jeanne shows Jaune and Pyrrha a photo of his days as a scrawny student.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend:
  • Waver gets irritated when Iskandar thinks he was on a date with Glynda.
  • Yang automatically assumes Edmond Dantes and Cleopatra are going out. Cleopatra corrects her.
  • Archer and Cinder deny they are a couple.
  • When Mercury gets in a good hit on Enkidu and then taunts Gilgamesh on how he beat up his girlfriend, Enkidu takes him down and clarifies that they are not dating, they are best friends.
  • Yang teases Blake about catching Achilles' eye, and asks her if she is cheating on Sun Wukong. Blake says she has no idea what she is talking about.
  • Neo and Jekyll tease Mercury about him dating Atalanta, and he denies it.
  • Achilles asks Atalanta if she has feelings for Mercury, but she denies it.
  • Ruby asks Penthesilea if the real reason why she's obsessed with Achilles is that she's in love with him. She becomes absolutely furious.
  • Since she has her memories, Jalter reveals Jeanne has feelings for Edmond Dantes. Both girls then deny it is true.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Frankenstein does her best to help Nora not lose Ren to Kiyohime.
  • Much to Archer's embarrassment, Irisviel supports him having a relationship with Cinder.
• Shout-Out:
  • Kirei Kotomine and Kiritsugu Emiya's relationship here is one to Dragon Ball Z Abridged, specifically the relationship between Tien and Vegeta and their mutual antagonism. Kirei takes the role of Tien while Kiritsugu takes the role of Vegeta.
  • Okita Souji's Three Stage Thrust is already a shout-out to Saito Hajime's Gatotsu attack from Rurouni Kenshin, but here, she actually uses her left hand for the attack.
  • In Pyrrha's fight with Scathach, Pyrrha is eventually knocked out, but remains standing in a battle ready stance. This is a reference to the scene in Naruto where Rock Lee remains standing in a battle ready stance after getting knocked out in his fight with Gaara.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Edmond Dantes tells Mordred she must give in to her hatred of her father to have the strength to defeat him. She retorts that while she does hate her father for disappearing, that doesn't control her as she has her own life to live and she can defeat Edmond in her own way. Indeed she does.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Invoked when Francis Drake challenges her students to duel each other and the first to land a hit wins. The only fight that doesn't end immediately is Neo vs Frankenstein, because Neo dodges Fran's attacks until she can land her own.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Charles-Henri Sanson and Chevalier d'Eon were wary of Weiss because she is a member of the infamous Schnee family. Marie Antoinette scolds them and says they shouldn't judge someone based on their family, but by their character. They apologize.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis:
  • Weiss and Nobunaga quickly become rivals and annoy each other.
  • Kirei Kotomine does his best to annoy Kiritsugu Emiya.
  • Thomas Alva Edison and Nikola Tesla are always arguing.
• Skewed Priorities: When Crescent Rose gets damaged during Ruby's sparring match with Cu Chulainn, she attempts to repair it, ignoring him even though the fight wasn't paused. He calls her out on it.
• Sky Surfing: Ruby figures out she can ride on her rocket-propelled locker in battle.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Unlike many of the others, Edmond Dantes did not pass any trials and so did not earn any of the nicknames he picked for himself, which is why hardly anyone takes him seriously in spite of his power level.
• Smoke Out: Archer and Cinder crash their weapons together and detonate them to blind Ruby and Astolfo with the smoke.
• Son of a Whore: Reika was a prostitute, so they don't know who Jack's father is.
• Spared by the Adaptation: To the shock and horror of Mercury, Marcus Black, his abusive father, is alive.
• Spit Take: When told about Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon, weapon fanatic Ruby spits her milk into Jaune's face.
• Squee:
  • As a weapon fanatic, Ruby always gets excited with Noble Phantasms and attributes like summoning them to their hands. She gets really excited when she finds out about Archer's Tracing ability.
  • Although she wasn't enthusiastic about having to get a new weapon, Nora becomes really excited when she tries out Skewered Plasma Blade.
  • Kato Danzo gets really excited when she finds out Mercury has artificial legs.
• Squick: In-Universe. Kairi Sisigou gives Yang a grenade made with necromancy out of a human heart. Yang wonders what it tastes like, and a disgusted Mordred says she wouldn't recommend eating it.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Atalanta and Achilles watch and comment on Blake and Chiron's sparring match. When it is over, while they are talking, Atalanta turns her head and is shocked to find Achilles gone. Then she turns back and finds him on the field flirting with Blake.
• Summon to Hand: Students of Chaldea have Noble Phantasms, weapons that are dematerialized until their owner calls them to their hand. The RWBY characters eventually get their weapons turned into Noble Phantasms. Pyrrha can pull her weapons to her with her Polarity Semblance, which gives her control over magnetism.
• Surprise Incest: Mercury is attracted to Ushiwakamaru, unaware she is his sister.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Attila/Altera is stoically annoyed by her bickering teammates.
• Synchronization: The rune on Chloe's stomach creates a one way version of this where she experiences Archer's injuries. Archer doesn't like this, but Chloe does, because it lets her know Archer is safe.

Tropes: T to Z

• Take That!: Jaune's personality changing so that he loses his crush on Weiss is because the author personally dislikes that ship.
• Talk to the Fist:
  • Mordred runs Edmond Dantes through while he was busy ordering her to address him by his full title, and comments he talks too much.
  • Glynda blasts Nero while she was chanting to summon Aestus Domus Aurea.
• Teacher/Student Romance:
  • Medb constantly seduces students.
  • Shirou Kotomine is dating the teacher Semiramis.
• Team Killer: After getting impaled, Edmond Dantes gets so angry that he starts throwing fire indiscriminately, straight up saying he doesn't care if he hits his own teammate Cleopatra to take out Yang and Mordred. Martha saves them by knocking him out, and says he's in trouble for what he did and said.
• Tears of Blood: Cinder borrows Archer's sword-arrow Caladbolg to take down Astolfo's Hippogriff during their fight. The strain causes her left eye to bleed.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: After her class escapes Heracles' island, Drake uses Golden Wild Hunt to reduce the entire island to ash.
• This Cannot Be!: When Gilgamesh blows off Mercury's fake leg, he is shocked beyond belief because his Aura didn't do anything to stop the attack.
• This Is Gonna Suck:
  • Gilgamesh's reaction when he is ordered to fight Bazett.
  • Astolfo's reaction when Archer proposes a tag team fight with Archer and Cinder vs Astolfo and Ruby. In contrast, Ruby, oblivious to his worry, gets excited.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Kiyohime screams this when Heracles injures Ren.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Mercury manages to win Round 2 of the Grand Order Tournament, outlasting all his opponents, including Gilgamesh. He then utterly curbstomps his abusive father Marcus.
• Took a Level in Badass: All the RWBY characters do this due to learning Chaldea Academy's methods. Jaune and Nora eventually change from Saber and Berserker to Shielder and Saber and their stats increase dramatically. Glynda gets taught magic by Medea which she can use alongside her telekinesis. Pyrrha learns advanced applications of her Semblance and can now affect non magnetic metals with Polarity.
• The Tooth Hurts: Penthesilea tries to bite Neo, but she replaces herself with a glass clone, and Penthesilea falls over in pain from biting glass.
• Trademark Favorite Food: For Atalanta, it's apples, likely a nod to her mythological counterpart.
• Tragic Keepsake: At the end, Kairi finds Diarmuid's broken weapons and uses the metal to make two rings for Mordred to remember her father.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Ruby's Silver Eyes activate and unleash her Reality Marble from stress and a head injury she takes from Archer.
• Traveling at the Speed of Plot: Ruby summons her locker from Beacon as she left Crescent Rose's repair kit in there. Even though it took a long plane trip to arrive in Apocrypha, the locker arrives in a matter of minutes.
• Truly Single Parent: According to Mordred, when Arthur Pendragon was turned into a woman, she immediately became pregnant and eventually gave birth to her. This turns out to be a lie Arturia told her. Mordred was born from Arturia and Diarmuid having an affair.
• Twisted Ankle: Cleopatra suffers one during her fight with Yang, which prevents her from moving and forces her to use Uraeus Astrape, her snake summon.
• Twitchy Eye: Nora starts getting one after seeing Kiyohime flirt with Ren.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Gawain, Lancelot, Mash, Jeanne, Jaune, and Pyrrha rescue a town from Grimm and kill Jaune Alter who had been murdering several townspeople. The townspeople blame them for the deaths for not arriving sooner, and kick the kids out, partially because Jaune shares the murderer's face, even though Jaune clearly fought him.
• Unknown Rival: Nero sees Ruby as her rival and vows to defeat her for having the power to summon roses, which she believes should belong to her alone. When she finally confronts and challenges her, Ruby has no idea who she is, and pays more attention to her other opponents Cinder and Amakusa.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal: When Ruby enters the room and sees girl's clothes in the closet, she assumes her roommate is a girl. She is extremely shocked when she enters the bathroom without knocking and sees Astolfo out of the shower.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • Bazett criticizes Yang for being this. Yang is incredibly strong, but relying on just her strength, Aura, and Semblance and not adapting to her opponents will only get her so far and she inevitably loses against Bazett, who is even stronger than Yang is and an expert martial artist.
  • Mordred also lacks technique and relies on her strength. She flounders against the highly skilled and similarly strong Medusa and only manages to win by catching her by surprise with her Deliberate Injury Gambit.
  • Jaune Alter is strong enough to beat Siegfried unconscious, but his swordplay is like a child throwing a tantrum. Even Jaune Arc is a better fighter than him.
  • Nero lacks sword skills and gets by with her strength and ability to drain her opponents' power. Cinder and Amakusa lecture her on this and are able to overwhelm her with their superior skills despite getting their energy drained.
  • Ren Alter is very strong, but fights like a savage and relies on his Healing Factor to tank attacks. He is defeated with relative ease, with his opponents calling him a disappointment.
• [Verb] This!: Yang says "Eat This!" before shooting Cleopatra's snake summon in the mouth, though it has no effect.
• Villain Cred: To Mercury's disgust, Kirei Kotomine says he admired his father, Marcus Black, for being such a vicious killer.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • When Ruby accidentally activates her Reality Marble, Cinder goes nuts, screaming that it's impossible that a little girl could achieve a Reality Marble before she could. She then attempts to kill Ruby, only for Archer to make the Kanshou sword she was holding disappear, and then the apparition of Summer Rose attacks.
  • When Jaune is able to predict Jaune Alter's moves because they fight the same way, Jaune Alter goes nuts screaming that Jaune is stupid over and over again. He goes nuts again when Mash successfully blocks his Sword Beam with Lord Camelot.
• Villains Out Shopping: Since they don't have to do anything to move Cinder's plan along, Mercury, Emerald, and Neo are for all intents and purposes actual students. Also, Cinder tells Archer that she sews in her spare time.
• Virtue Is Weakness: Jaune Arc nearly effortlessly blocks Jaune Alter's attacks, until Alter aims at Arc's injured horse. Arc blocks the attack, but creates an opening that allows Alter to knock his shield away. Alter calls Arc stupid and says protecting others makes him weak.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: After seeing Jack the Ripper eating what is apparently a human heart, Mercury has to rush to the bathroom to throw up.
• We Have Become Complacent:
  • Nero claims other kingdoms like Vale are weak because their mountain ranges shield them from major Grimm attacks, while Apocrypha is an open plain which means they have to fight them more often.
  • Vlad III declares Pyrrha to be this, as she had started to become overconfident due to being the strongest student in Beacon Academy and doesn't train to her fullest potential, and she hasn't tried to truly master her Semblance. He makes it his pet project to correct this and fully unlock her potential.
  • During a brief visit to Vale, Gilgamesh comments on how lax the security is.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Mordred is obsessed with getting her father's approval. Now that her father is missing, her goal is to graduate Chaldea Academy so that she can be strong enough to survive and find him, then prove her strength to him.
• Wham Episode:
  • Gazing into the Future": An Evil Knockoff of Jaune, later called Jaune Alter, is created.
  • "Speaking Up": Drake's class discovers Heracles, the founder of Apocrypha, is somehow still alive after centuries, and nearly kills them because he is a mindless Berserker. After being rivals for Ren's affections for so long, Nora lets him go and gives Kiyohime her blessing to be with him.
  • "Silver Eyes Revelation": Ruby unknowingly had a Reality Marble that has copies of lost loved ones like her mother Summer Rose. This earns her Cinder's enmity due to Cinder wanting to achieve a Reality Marble.
  • "End of an Arc": Jaune Alter had kidnapped Siegfried and turned him into a Grimm Dragon, then massacred a fishing town. Jaune, Pyrrha, Jeanne, Mash, and Gawain manage to kill him, but he dies warning them that he is one of many and an invasion is inevitable. Gawain stays behind to help rebuild the town and call in help to change Siegfried back to normal.
  • "See What I See": Ruby turns a Beowolf into her new mount, Lobo. In the process, she discovers the Grimm, previously thought of as mindless beasts, have feelings. Ruby is able to gain Lobo's trust by summoning Lobo's mate Blanca with her Reality Marble.
  • "Taking the Heat": Cinder, Archer, and Chloe discover that Atlas has been illegally hacking people's video diaries to base their AI's personalities on, and that BB is an android based on the deceased Sakura Matou's diaries. Similarly, Penny Polendina is also based on a deceased girl.
  • "Father": The reason Arturia disappeared was that she is getting weaker, so she is on a quest to turn herself back into a man, believing that will fix the issue. It is revealed Arturia lied about giving birth to Mordred through immaculate conception; Mordred's father is Diarmuid Ua Duibhne. The leader of the group behind the Alters is Mash's mother Guinevere, who is hellbent on destroying Arturia. The group has an Arthur Alter.
  • "The Next Phase": Mercury learns to his horror that his abusive father Marcus Black is somehow alive and in Apocrypha, even though Cinder's group saw Mercury kill him and set his corpse on fire. An Alter of Jeanne, eventually named Jalter, is created and imprisoned for study.
  • "Heating Up": Kirei and Bazett encounter a friendly humanoid Grimm named Serenity.
  • "Self Destruction": Neo murders BB on Cinder's orders. Chaldea's higher ups discover BB was an android sent by Atlas.
  • "Deadly Force": Marcus Black and Angra Mainyu apparently murder Kirei and Bazett and capture Serenity.
  • "Forced Meeting": Guinevere and Arthur Alter attack the town Arturia is staying at. Guinevere swears she will destroy everyone Arturia loves as punishment for leaving her. Arthur Alter wipes the town off the map and mortally wounds Diarmuid, while Kiritsugu escapes with an unconscious Arturia.
  • "End of Order": We learn the copies of loved ones inside Ruby's Reality Marble can apparently be killed. Before she goes, the copy of Sakura thanks Cinder and does something that affects her powers. Chloe suffers, which means something has happened to Archer. The fishing town on the horizon is rocked by a huge explosion.
  • "The Sunken March": Guinevere's group apparently murders Gawain and captures several students. The group reveals to Serenity that she and the other humanoid Grimm used to be human and were a byproduct of the ritual to create the first Alters. The group harnesses Serenity's energy to turn the townspeople into more Black Mud and make Alters out of their captives. The group then takes control of the Grimm and launches an invasion of Apocrypha.
  • "Rescue Operations": Salem has a Reality Marble and was able to harness Archer's negative emotions for years to create more Grimm. She also does not like Guinevere's group for usurping control of her Grimm and making Alters. Salem and Cinder discover Sakura had purged Cinder of her Grimm powers and strengthened her Fall Maiden powers. Cinder has fallen in love with Archer and Emerald and Neo care too much about their friends in Chaldea (Mercury is in a coma), so they decide to defy Salem's orders to escape Apocrypha and instead defend it and rescue their captive friends. Dr. Roman and Da Vinci attempt to terminate Jalter despite Jeanne's protests, but Jalter breaks free and apparently kills Dr. Roman.
  • "Wait and Hope": Jaune saves Dr. Roman with his Healing Hands. Edmond Dantes defends Jeanne and Da Vinci from Jalter, but Jalter stuns them by revealing Jeanne and herself have feelings for Dantes. Jalter escapes while Jeanne and Dantes feel very awkward. Merlin manages to partially restore Siegfried's humanity, so Siegfried is basically a Dragon Faunus and can transform back and forth into a Grimm Dragon.
  • "Mad Love": Kiyohime, Tamamo Cat, Li Shuwen, and Taiga Fujimura manage to defeat Ren Alter and rescue Ren. Bazett and Kirei are revealed to have survived Marcus and Angra Mainyu's assault. Together with Neo, Medb, and Scathach, they take on Cu Chulainn Alter to rescue Cu Chulainn. Medb sacrifices herself to knock Cu Alter into Scathach's Gate of Skye, trapping them both in the Land of Shadows.
  • "Fire and Ice": Weiss, Nobunaga, Nero, Tamamo, and Elizabeth battle Altera, whom Carmilla had transformed into a monstrous giant, and manage to restore her to normal, then Weiss and Nobunaga defeat Okita Alter to rescue Okita. In the course of these battles, all these girls finally manage to set aside their differences and truly work together as a team.
  • "Misdirection": Gawain had survived the ambush from Guinevere's group, but was mortally wounded. He, Drake, and Emerald manage to rescue Serenity and kill Angra Mainyu. Gawain succumbs to his injuries, but asks them to take his sword Excalibur Galatine back to Chaldea. Emerald carries it for the time being.
  • "Falling in the Black": After waking up from his coma, Mercury finally overcomes his fear of his father and defeats him to save Jack the Ripper and his sister Ushiwakamaru. Marcus Black begs Mercury to finish him off, but he refuses and Marcus ends up kiling himself.
  • "As We Fall": To save Archer from his Alter, Cinder finally taps into her full Fall Maiden powers. According to the author, this causes Amber to pass away.
  • "Faded": Ruby, Astolfo, Iskandar, and Zhuge Liang manage to defeat Darius and his Grimm army, but Astolfo, Hippogrif, and Bucephalus are killed in the process.
  • "End of an Empire": The Atlas military finally arrives and helps stop the invasion. Guinevere and Arthur Alter finally meet Lancelot and Mash. When Guinevere callously tries to kill Mash, Lancelot's feelings for his daughter overcome his feelings for his wife, and he saves Mash by cutting off Guinevere's arms, causing her to run away. Jaune has Caren turn Lancelot back from a Berserker to a Saber, allowing him to use Arondight Overload to kill Arthur Alter. Salem catches Guinevere with her Reality Marble and kills her.
  • "Wayward Son": Gilgamesh and Yang are attacked by Gilles de Rais. They manage to kill him, but Gil shields Yang from an explosion and she can only find his severed arm. In her grief, the Black Mud infects her. Arturia finally tells Mordred that she is her and Diarmuid's daughter. They find a maddened Yang and manage to bring her back to normal. They are attacked by a huge horde of Grimm. After giving Yang Avalon to heal her injuries, Arturia tells Mordred she is proud of her, then uses Excalibur to wipe out the Grimm. She uses up all her energy and dies.
  • "Eye for an Eye": Musashi single handedly foils the White Fang's attempt to breach Vale's defenses and gets Adam arrested, depriving the White Fang of a powerful member and setting them back.
• What a Drag: After lassoing Jaune Alter, Jaune uses his horse to drag him out of town until Alter cuts the rope.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: Astolfo asks Medusa to remove her mask and show everyone her pretty eyes, making her blush. She removes her mask, as she can apparently control her stone gaze.
• What Does She See in Him?:
  • Platonic version, maybe ^note In canon, Gilgamesh is bisexual and Enkidu has Ambiguous Gender. When Gilgamesh acts rude to Archer and Cu Chulainn, Archer asks why in the world Enkidu is friends with him. Later, Pyrrha and Mercury wonder why Enkidu is friends with him.
  • During a party, Tesla and Edison try to find Glynda to ask her to dance with them, but they find her dancing with Vlad. They incredulously ask why she would pick him, and Medea points out Vlad had been helping her with her lessons, while they haven't done anything for her.
• When She Smiles: Glynda smiles when she shares a dance with Vlad, which makes Medea happy, saying it's about time Glynda finally relaxed and had fun.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Astolfo wears girl's clothes, and comments he loves the fact Chaldea lets you wear whatever you want. The others agree he is very pretty.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Weiss is afraid of skeletons. This turns out to be the reason why she has a hard time using her summoning Semblance, because she's subconsciously forming her creatures without skeletons, which makes them fall apart.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman:
  • Cinder comments she heard that Rin Tohsaka and Sakura Matou were considered the most beautiful girls in the land.
  • Nero Claudius, Tamamo no Mae, and Elizabeth Bathory all claim to be this, and bicker about who deserves the title.
• Worst Aid: After Mordred impales Edmond Dantes, she warns him not to pull her sword out or else he will bleed out. He gets so angry that he does it anyway before cauterizing the wound. Martha calls him a moron and says he's lucky that stunt didn't kill him.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Gilgamesh respects Pyrrha after she managed to temporarily hold off the Gate of Babylon. Jeanne and Mash are shocked, because it is almost impossible to earn Gilgamesh's respect.
  • Neo and Frankenstein bow and curtsy respectively to each other after their fight.
  • Achilles says Blake is impressive and will be fun to spar with after she puts up a good fight against Chiron, even though she lost, because she lasted longer than he did the first time he fought Chiron.
  • Yang and Cleopatra respect each other after their fight.
  • Enkidu says fighting Pyrrha and Mercury was fun and says they understand why Gilgamesh found Pyrrha impressive. Despite having the advantage, Enkidu forfeits their match out of respect.
  • After defeating Jaune Alter, Gawain says he was brave and he will remember him.
  • Penthesilea calls Neo a true warrior when she continues fighting after losing an eye.
• Wrecked Weapon:
  • Nora's hammer Magnhild gets destroyed in the battle against Heracles.
  • In their fight against Archer and Cinder, Astolfo's sword gets cut in half and Crescent Rose's blade gets cracked. They are eventually repaired.
  • In their rematch, Pyrrha is able to destroy several of Gilgamesh's weapons.
  • Yang's Ember Celica get shattered in a fight with Mordred.
  • Arthur Alter destroys Diarmuid's spears Gae Dearg and Gae Buidhe.
  • The Black Mud contaminates several of Gilgamesh's weapons, then his ultimate weapon Ea is destroyed when he uses it to shield Yang from an explosion.
• Wrong Context Magic: The Fate characters don't use Dust for their abilities and their abilities are often too versatile to be a Semblance. This, their Noble Phantasms, and spells like Bazett's runes and Kairi Sisigou's necromancy baffle the RWBY characters.
• Yandere: Kiyohime is just as much of one as ever, being extremely possessive of anyone who catches her eye, in this case, Ren. She has no qualms tormenting Nora and her inability to confess to Ren, and will hurt anyone who lays a scratch on him, as shown when Heracles hit him.
• You Are Already Dead:
  • In their match, Blake and Okita Souji exchange several sword swings, until Okita suddenly Flash Steps past her. Blake wonders what just happened, and then falls over in pain from Okita's Three Stage Thrust.
  • Li Shuwen punches Ren Alter once with No Second Strike, then walks away. Confused, Ren Alter tries to attack, but suddenly explodes.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are:
  • Pyrrha tells Jaune that though he cheated to get into Beacon, he hasn't cheated since, and he got into Chaldea fair and square.
  • Gawain tells Jaune that his history of failure stops him from being arrogant and gives him experience so that he can avoid future mistakes.
  • Vlad Tepes tells Pyrrha that a lot of her combat potential is still untapped and he will help her unlock it.
• You Are Not Alone: Vlad notices that Pyrrha holds back a lot in battle. She says it is because she is tired of being Lonely at the Top. He points out she was at the top of Beacon, but now she is in Chaldea, where there are a lot of people waiting for her at the top.
• You Fool!: Taiga directly says this when Nobunaga thought learning to fight without Noble Phantasms was stupid.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!:
  • Weiss has this reaction when Oda Nobunaga calls her "Ice Queen". Weiss wonders why no matter where she goes, people call her that.
  • Tamamo no Mae, Elizabeth Bathory, and Attila/Altera have this reaction after Nero goes berserk over the fact Ruby makes rose petals like she does. They cannot believe she is getting worked up over something so petty.
  • Pyrrha has this reaction when Jaune says he has no idea what Jeanne's weapon is or how she fights. He defends himself by explaining he hadn't seen her in ages and that sort of topic doesn't come up in casual phone conversations. Pyrrha does it again when she finds out Jeanne's main weapon is a flag.
  • Mercury says this when he loses his legs for a third time.
  • Archer has this reaction after Mercury lost his legs for a third time, complaining that he just fixed them.
  • Robin Hood yells this when after Frankenstein blows Heracles up with Blasted Tree, his body pulls itself together and he comes back to life.
  • Sanson and d'Eon have this reaction when they find out Weiss has Gilgamesh's number and they seem to regularly call each other.
• You Remind Me of X:
  • Cinder remarks Chloe von Einzbern reminds her of herself when she was her age.
  • Ruby and Weiss' interactions remind Iskandar of himself and Waver Velvet, a free spirit and a rational thinker.
  • Gilles de Rais says Yang reminds him of Jeanne.
• You're Nothing Without Your Phlebotinum: Tamamo no Mae disarms Glynda of her riding crop and calls her useless without her "magic wand". Glynda corrects her that the riding crop is not the source of her powers, it just helps her focus.