Yet another subtitling of the title song that disagrees on the exact lyrics, and this time also chops up the last two stanzas really weirdly. You'd think they could have just done this once and then copied and pasted it thirteen times.
Ruby and Yang abruptly swap targets, heading for Mercury and Emerald respectively. Mercury swiftly disarms Ruby and taunts her about it. I'm expecting comeuppance. Yep, headbutt to the nose; Ruby remains angry.
Nora continues to cover the Aura transfusion; at her worried question, Jaune reports that Weiss is waking. Jaune complains it's going slowly, to which Nora drops the metaphorical bombshell that this is his Semblance (a word that the subtitles cannot spell correctly). He gets his head around that, then disagrees that it's healing; it merely seems to be accelerating Weiss' own Aura healing her. Nora worries that Jaune will deplete his own Aura in the process, but Jaune has apparently fallen all the way into a better headspace, for he reminds her of Pyrrha's own words (by name, even) that he "has a lot of it".
Ren is not actually faring very well against Hazel, and gets thrown onto a wall and then zapped. Nora is ...worried isn't a sharp enough word. Alarmed, that's a better one. Nora is alarmed; with Weiss awake, Jaune tells Nora to go. I wonder what Hazel could possibly blunder into here.
Weiss has undergone accelerated healing to the point that she's only mildly annoyed at being told to stay out of the fighting for now (as opposed to in terrible pain).
Hazel is wiping the floor with Qrow, Ren, and Ozpin!Oscar basically all at once. Nora arrives, and is disarmed and laid out on the floor in very short order, at which point Hazel makes exactly the blunder I thought he would: pressing his attack with electricity. It initially seems like it's working, but Nora's just lulling him into a false sense of security before she turns the tables. She's beaten a Nuckelavee that literally starred in her nightmares for most of a decade; you'll have to do better than that.
At this point Ozpin dispenses the advice that everybody could have used a lot earlier: Hazel's Semblance is ignoring pain. It's not the Dust thing (ow), it's just what enables him to make such liberal use of the Dust thing. Fortunately, Nora does not rely on inflicting pain. She just hammers him so hard he goes out through the wall beside the front door (which he wasn't exactly close to at the time) and eventually tumbles to a stop in the courtyard after about twice as far again - right in front of Adam and his latest bodyguard. Adam is understandably flummoxed as to what led to that happening. Hazel brushes him off and gets out some fire Dust to supplement his current loadout of exclusively lightning Dust. Okay, so the Nora trick's definitely not gonna work again.
I'm not sure what happened to Emerald and Mercury, but there's a lull in the fighting while everybody looks out at Hazel recharging, and our protagonists are all looking tired. They're going to need a new trick or two.
Adam exhorts the White Fang to "stay focused, our friends are almost done here". Right on cue, Blake. Hazel of course has no idea who she is.
Blake demands the White Fang stand down. They mostly point guns at her instead. Adam tells them to wait while he monologues. Blake turns it into a dialogue, with the sadly usual subtitling failures ("faunus" → "furnace"). Adam refuses to be dialogued, telling Blake she can't hope to stop them. "Not by myself," says Blake. Right on cue, Sun, and the Kuo Kuana militia behind him. And there's Ghira leading another contingent.
One of the White Fang minions recognises the first guy who signed up for the militia. This starts a ripple of minions wondering if, perhaps, they're the baddies. Adam starts a speech to shore them up, but is interrupted by the arrival of Mistralian airships containing a bunch of Mistral police who insist they surrender (and also Kali).
Inside, Emerald (fighting Ruby) is just as dismayed at the arrival of the forces of law and order. Everyone order-aligned (if not always law-aligned) is pretty happy about it, even if they're Jaune and not entirely sure what it even is. Is this our Volume denouement already? That can't be right, there's still a Chapter to go after this one.
Adam starts on the path to villainous breakdown, which Blake indulges to the minimum extent necessary. So Adam decides he's taking them all with him and sets off the demolition charges. Or he tries to. It doesn't work. Performance anxiety joke goes here. The minion next to him visibly loses faith in his leadership, and he (Adam) can't cope at all with that, or being told that the charges were disarmed. Cut to Ilia with a fistful of inert detonators.
Adam turns to Hazel for help, which completely shreds any credibility he had left. Hazel doesn't help, citing that it's Adam's problem and Adam had best solve it. Adam solves the problem the only way he knows how: killing everyone who disagrees, starting with Blake. He's completely forgotten Blake's Semblance and gets clowned on instead, sending his credibility negative. His only option left is to roar at his minions to "KILL THEM!", and astonishingly some of them are still on board with that, but they target the airships first, which resist small-arms fire long enough for Sun, Ilia, and the Menagerie militia to corral the small-arms.
Watching the entire plan go down the drain, Hazel decides he'd better help after all. He doesn't get to before he's gored by a spectral Queen Lancer (not full size, otherwise he'd be mincemeat) and yanked back inside to face the displeasure of Weiss Schnee turned up to eleven. He's then lucky enough not to actually face that displeasure yet because Team RWY all notice Blake walking in behind him.
So did everyone else, and so Ruby orders Yang to jump down the lift to the Relic vault and Yang, bless her, doesn't even pause to think about Blake just yet. Emerald, after recovering from her distraction, is too far away to stop her. Mercury manages to grab her arm, but it's the mech-arm so instead of fighting him again (character development!) she just leaves it behind in his grip. Boot's on the other foot now, scumbag!
Ruby bids Blake to return to the courtyard as Weiss returns to being displeased at Team, uh, {{I believe they're called Team MEH.}}
Subtitling failure strikes again, mangling Vernal's name (I know she's a pain in the kidney, but really?) as Cinder speaks it at the start of goading Raven into Maiden-on-Maiden combat. Cinder, who hasn't been in a serious fight since her maiming at Beacon Tower (one more time: Go Ruby!), soon learns the folly of trying to use the manifestation of her soul to protect her arm made of soulless monster.
"You turned yourself into a monster just for power."
"Look who's talking."
For a quick game, guess which of them said which of those lines. Answer:
first by Raven, second by Cinder.
The resulting fight cannot be explained, only experienced.
After a while they make such a shockwave that everyone on the surface feels it (Haven's going to need a post-earthquake inspection), bringing down a rockfall that divides them briefly. Raven, who was holding her own before that, is off her guard when Cinder extends her Grimm arm through the last of the rockfall, pins her (Raven) to the wall near the entrance, and starts siphoning the Spring Maidenship. Yang, get a move on.
Yang doesn't need to get a move on just yet; an aftershock rockfall falls on Cinder, right as Raven freezes her feet in place to stop her from evading it. Raven is not stupid enough to think Cinder's done. Now they're fighting amongst the rest of the still-falling rockfall.
And here come the lyrics!
I'm honestly not sure which of these losers the lyrics are about. Maybe both of them.
Both Maidens are now back on ground level with little, if any, Aura. Raven seems to be a little better off, able to string coherent sentences together that aren't just "Shut up!". She castigates Cinder to watch her back.
Vernal's not dead! She shoots Cinder. This doesn't accomplish much really, but it does allow Raven an opening to zap Cinder's half-mask off, hurl her off the platform, and freeze her for the drop. Did I mention that "ground level" is a platform above a really long drop? Because it is.
{{Cinder Fell.}}
I'd like to think Cinder's dead, but I thought that on Beacon Tower, and she sure survived that. Vernal, on the other hand, is definitely dead now. She died shooting Cinder, which balances out at least a few sins regardless of her motivations for doing it. Look at that, Raven, teamwork is important after all.
Raven, now alone, opens the Relic vault. It remains ostentatious as all h*ck. She's about to walk in when Yang arrives on the platform.
Nearly as many voice actors credited as three Chapters ago. Not even including Vernal, who didn't have a voice line; I think she's the first character to die without having a voice actor credit in that Chapter (
checks yep, Fennec Albain had one).
Next time: Who needs fight scenes?
