I feel confident in predicting this will go nothing like the Cyndi Lauper song.
Qrow and Ozpin!Oscar sit in the main area of the suite while Ozpin tempts fate. Qrow remains suspicious that every Hunter he knew in Mistral is missing either presumed dead or about to be; Ozpin remains optimistic at a broader scope.
Ruby arrives slightly before they were going to summon everyone for a planning meeting. If the Spring Maiden is keyed to Haven's vault, she asks, what about the Fall Maiden being keyed to Beacon's vault? "I was wondering who would be the first to ask," says Ozpin, going on to explain without detail that the relic at Beacon is better-hidden. {{My favourite explanation from a fanfic was that they put it in Tai's shed for the ultimate security through obscurity.}}
"Well, I did have one more question."
"No, my cane is not a Relic."
"I have no more questions."
Never change, Ruby.
They send Ruby to get the others, slightly delayed by Qrow's Scroll ringing. It's Lionheart telling them the council caved and come meet him tomorrow night to plan out hitting the bandits, which totally isn't the trap Raven just sold them all into. Totally. Ozpin and Qrow are both pretty suspicious, but not in Ruby's hearing.
And rightly so, because Raven herself was in the headmaster's office supervising the call. The two of them then have a chat where Lionheart says they're both afraid and Raven protests way too much that she's just smart.
The gunfight is not going well for Kali and her slightly useless guards even before Yuma enters via the window and flattens one of the guards. So many broken windows tonight. Kali charges to aid the guard, but makes the absolute rookie mistake of accompanying her charge with a war cry.
Meanwhile, Blake gives Ilia every chance to reconsider her decisions, and has a shadow clone tank the attack when Ilia doesn't reconsider ("Stop lecturing me!"). Ilia has the more versatile weapon for this kind of fight, able to shock Blake's to make her (Blake) drop it. Blake's response is to disengage and turn the lights off, just after she looked meaningfully at Ilia's dropped mask. What shenanigans are planned, and will they work when both participants probably have night vision?
No indications of shenanigans yet, but Blake has both parts of her weapon back and is explaining that she's
done running away from her problems seeing as it's never solved any of them. The darkness does make it easier to see the glow of Ilia's weapon when it's about to strike, but it's not helping find Ilia herself. Less-predictable illumination is needed. Blake apologises to her father (and for some reason not her mother) and sets the upper part of the room on fire.
Ilia, now unable to hide, engages in the kind of close-range fight where her weapon still has the advantage. Blake eventually disengages, helped by shadow clones, while firing at Ilia which she has to block with her weapon. Now Blake's weapon is more suited - Ilia's only glows funny colours - and Ilia's
really mad, screaming her own lecture (how hypocritical) as her only option to try to bait Blake back into whip range. Blake doesn't, she just shoots some more. Ilia keeps blocking, then discovers she was blocking ice Dust rounds and her weapon's rather the worse for wear so she can't counterattack; Blake removes it by weapon-ribbon, then for some reason re-enters melee. Well, at least her opponent's unarmed now.
The reason was therapy by combat: held down by her old bestie asking her what her parents would have wanted, Ilia is finally pushed past anger into breakdown.
There's no window by which the Albains can be launched into the room, so Ghira makes a hole in the wall for the purpose. He sees Blake and gets distracted long enough for an Albain to stab him in the back. He's not dead or even out of the fight yet, but that distracted Blake and Ilia's found her anger again, pushing Blake off her and going to find her weapon.
Ghira holds his own against the Albains, who get in each other's way a fair bit while waiting for (and occasionally exhorting) Ilia to tip the balance in their favour. After a bit Ghira gets one of them to accidentally fireblast the other, which causes the first one some distress before Sun makes a dramatic re-entrance and takes him down. Blake starts peeling herself off the floor where Ilia left her as Ghira orders Sun to focus on Ilia.
Sun performs better in armed combat with Ilia, and eventually gets the upper hand, forcing her against a probably-structural pillar. The pillar nearly breaks in the resulting contest of strength before Blake pleads with them both to stop. This was a mistake - Sun is more distracted, so Ilia manages to fall out of the way. Sun slams into the pillar, breaking it completely, and just manages to jump out of the way of the collapse - but Ilia's on the floor and can't escape! Cut to black.
Cut back to Ghira holding the entire mezzanine section up to allow Ilia to escape. She does, but now Ghira's in an even worse position. Sun-clones try to help him but there's too much weight for them to make a difference. Exactly one Albain isn't out cold, and he now grabs both of their weapons and runs for Ghira. He reckoned without Blake, who ribbons Ghira out of the way in the nick of time. The Albain's attack turns into a dive straight under the mezzanine collapse as the main thing holding it up leaves in a hurry - he has barely enough time to realise it before the Sun-clones break and it comes down on him, punctuated by an explosion. That did not look survivable.
Cue Kali dragging in an unconscious Yuma. The gang's all here!
The surviving Albain somewhat-understandably completely loses it, screaming that an unclear "you" ruined everything before making a suicidal charge at Sun and the Belladonnas. The weapon that stops him is none of theirs: Ilia zaps him from behind. Then she resumes total emotional breakdown. Blake, you have exactly one job left here and you're not doing it! (Also, that fire is remarkably contained for nobody having done anything about it.)
Fade to the outside of the house, where the police are having A Time just keeping the onlookers from making anything worse. Ghira emerges carrying two unconscious minions. Behind him, the conscious attackers are escorted out, including Corsac Albain. Ghira just shakes his head when a guard asks about Fennec; the guard asks Corsac "Was it worth it?" Corsac's body language screams that it wasn't.
I think it may finally be time for Blake to give a speech to Menagerie. Kali stops Ghira from getting in the way.
Not even an intro, just straight into:
"Humans didn't do this. We did this. Faunus. We did this to ourselves."
Yang wishes she could hit as hard as Blake just did. She (Blake) continues that silent majorities aren't heard, because they're
silent, and if Adam "Cancer" Taurus is the only one talking (mostly with violence) then they're all tarred with his brush, and it's kinda their fault for staying silent and letting him speak for them. If they want the racial violence to stop, they'll have to actually do something about Adam. Going to Haven is putting their lives at risk, but
lives are at risk. "So I'm going. And I'll stand by myself if I have to."
Overall, 5/10 speech, got most of its impact from the damage behind her.
"I'll stand with you!" says Ilia, who is about done with emotional breakdowns, and with trying to tie a bow on her best friend for Adam "Cancer" Taurus. "...if - if you'd have me." As it starts to click in the crowd that Ilia was the same one denouncing the Belladonnas days earlier, the guard stops Ilia from going down the steps. Blake overrules him. It is left to Ghira to tell him that "there is strength in forgiveness".
"I'll go," says the man whom it looked in the montage was the closest to signing up. He is the first of many. Sun reflects that they've got work to do, before addressing a beef with Ilia:
"You stabbed me."
"I-I-" (is pinched) "Ow!"
"There. Let's just call it even."
Ghira and Kali are evidently professionals, for they now descend the stairs to talk logistics. Wait, the attack on Haven is in two weeks? Breakneck timeskips strike again!
That's a lot of voice actors. Thanks Menagerie!
Next time: Just Cinder things.
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