Between last and this Chapter, I happened to be out for dinner at a location of
the Pancake Parlour, whose interior decorations gave off extreme Lewis Carroll vibes. It was a bit disconcerting.
So, what are the clocks about? Let's find out.
Changed shot! The Rusted Knight, aka Jaune Arc, is no longer helmeted in his first appearance.
The falling sequence ends with the statue of Neo, of course; the background appears to be a tree made of pink shards of some kind, resembling Neo's illusions before they specialise. The Jabberwalker and Curious Cat are stuck in this tree. The former may have been foreshadowing their apparent alliance last Chapter. I don't like what that might imply about the latter.
Black screen. Slow dramatic music. Sounds of battle.
As we started Chapter 1 with first-person Ruby falling, so we start Chapter 6 with first-person Jaune falling. Because normal spacetime does not apply here, Crescent Rose falls simultaneously with him, and he dives to grab it on the way down.
Cut through black to Jaune waking up on the beach, implied to not have made it to Crescent Rose. Just like Ruby, he has no idea what's going on. He appears to have abandoned his weapon on the beach - we know the sword is broken, but still, the shield ought to still work.
Cut through black to Jaune hacking his way through the jungle, having evidently retrieved his weapon (at least the shield part, collapsed into the sheath). He reaches a tree that is very loudly ticking. Its fruits are clocks. He picks one. It almost immediately starts swiftly running backwards. So does whatever passes for time in the Ever After. Among the first things to noticeably run backwards are several coloured meteors that I'm guessing were Team RWBY.
Jaune, understandably, panics. There's not much he can do about it. Eventually his panic leads him to throw the clockfruit on the ground, which still does nothing, and smash it with his sword-sheath, which does.
Cut to Jaune sitting on the beach watching the sun set (in the right direction), as it sinks in how alone he now is. In voiceover, the Jaune of the present narrates "I thought maybe I'd never see you again.", just in case it hadn't sunk in for us. But he resolved to time-travel back the slow way. No-transition to a much older Jaune watching the meteors fall again; I think those two are Weiss and Blake. {{Actually they're not.}}
Cut back to Jaune realising that the Ever After (or perhaps Neo) might be pulling a fast one on him and this might not be the real Team RWBY. We know they are, and Ruby assures him that they are. This would ordinarily be enough to rule out Neo's involvement, but the first Jabberwalker illusion talked just fine, so.
Team RWBY+J+L group hug! Yes, even Little found a way.
And now the Comedy™ begins. Team RBY have sensible questions. Weiss just, well, just imagine the spluttering if V1-2 Weiss and Jaune saw that ten-second sequence.
And now the Comedy™
ends - Ruby has just asked him to fill them in on the rest of V8, which will
oh no Weiss only said Penny "sacrificed herself" and that got Ruby to faint, imagine the all-round despair if Jaune spills the full details. I'm imagining it and I don't want to.
We are spared the full exposition, instead fading to another scene after it's complete. Jaune has confirmed that Salem got her mitts on both Knowledge and Creation, which Ruby is understandably disheartened to hear. Team WBY mull over Cinder still being alive and the key to Choice, which Salem reportedly hasn't found yet but
will given enough time to search the ruins of Beacon, leaving Destruction as the only Relic that can yet be defended.
Blake, unusually, is the voice of optimism, asserting that they saved (most of) the population of Atlas. Weiss asserts that it was for nothing because the risk to them in the first place was the scheme to safeguard Creation, which failed, and Ruby backs that up with a reminder that rescuing population is useless if Salem reunites the Relics and gets everyone killed anyway. Yang tries to shore up Ruby, or maybe not, because her chosen method of doing so is to tell Ruby that that's how Ironwood saw it, which is not a productive framing. Jaune now gets snippy with them for wasting time in the face of clearly oncoming bad weather.
Fade to Team RWBY+JJ on the road, heading for what Jaune describes as "his village". He's somewhat surprised that they made it this far from the Crimson Castle on their own. Blake says they had help. Cue the Curious Cat to reappear.
Jaune and the Cat know each other and do
not get on. The bad weather rolls in as an argument brews. Jaune asserts that the really big tree, Team RWBY's intended destination, is not a good idea at all because it's where Ascension happens. The Cat shrugs that off, saying that Ascension won't work that way for non-citizens. To which:
Jaune: "Oh yeah? Then what happened to Lewis?"
Ruby: "Who?"
Jaune: "Alyx's brother."
(swell of dramatic musical sting as everybody looks to the Cat)
Team RWBY try to reshape their worldviews. Yang wins the race to ask the Cat why they never said anything. The Cat says they never asked, which is an excellently Catlike answer but will inflame tensions. Weiss fumes that she put her trust in a story that turns out to be inaccurate. Right on cue, the bad weather is almost on top of them all. Jaune says he has a plan. The Cat is dismissive. Ruby pleads for time to wrap her head around it all. The Cat declares them to be "stuck at a crossroads", to which Jaune reprises Ozpin from that time Ruby asked Jinn a question: shouting a negative and trying to retroactively stop the Cat from saying something, to no avail. The screen goes white, then fades to black as Jaune whispers "Dammit.".
It's the portal-bridge-land that was next in the titles! We begin on a central island that makes sense, featuring a crossroads. Well, this is going to suck.
"Welcome to a punderstorm," Jaune briefs Team RW. It's taken their abstract problem, he says, and manifested it concretely. I see this is what he was worried about with the storm rolling in.
As Jaune tells them that they have to solve the abstract problem or wait out the storm (which I'm guessing will take longer), Weiss, Done with everything, declares the situation to be "the pits", and immediately falls down one that appears for the purpose. Jaune doesn't react at all, so Ruby takes his lead. Weiss soon falls from a great height back onto the spot she started and declares that she really should have expected that. (Her weapon must be clipping into the ground.)
Only now does Ruby realise that Team BY aren't with them. "Must have had something bigger to work out," mutters Jaune. So punderstorms sort you based on what your problems are, independently of which one was punned on? Scary, but also cool.
Another lightning-strike transition to Yang, who finds herself on a rickety storm-swept bridge which also looks familiar from this bit of the titles. She and Blake (in a matching situation) soon notice each other. There is a central island between them, but it's at least fifty metres away from each of them and there are no further planks on the bridges. I feel like they'll have to talk to progress.
Back on the 'ground', Jaune tells Team RW that the events depicted in the fairy tale "all happened. Just not the way Alyx said when she wrote it.". Meanwhile, they pass by mirrors (that look like unframed portals) depicting past events: this one shows Penny, this one an exterior view of Atlas...
Jaune recounts, with animatic assistance, what the h*ck happened. He's also grown up with the fairy tale, so he was a bit confused to be living through it - mostly. Bits were different. For example, Alyx herself (animatic confirms she is/was Storybook Shot Character #5) was a worse person than depicted. (Shocking. /s) After meeting with the Herbalist, she also became distrusting. Jaune's attempts to "get the story back on track" only started that distrust on a vicious spiral, culminating in Alyx poisoning him to get him out of the way.
Animatic end. Weiss offers what little sympathy she can. It is left to Ruby to ask about the Cat. Jaune, staring at a mirror depicting his younger self, tells them (and us) that basically the Cat is to Ascension as Death is to death, convincing - "manipulating" - Ever After residents who have fallen out of sync with their roles to either get back on track or go get recycled. Remnant residents have no role in the Ever After, so the Cat sends them to become tree food.
"How can you be sure?" asks Ruby. Cue Lewis? Yep. Alyx and Lewis went to the tree, and only Alyx returned to Remnant.
Back in the air:
Yang: "Are you all right?"
Blake: "I'll feel a lot better when we're together, on that platform."
Right on cue, another bridge plank appears in front of Blake. I knew it! Yang decides it must be a magic word, and tries them out, to no avail. Eventually she settles for encouraging Blake to figure it out, which leads to complimenting Blake, which manifests a plank or two in front of Yang. I knew it!
The winds around them are dying down. Yang still takes the wrong lesson initially:
Yang: "You have cat ears!"
(nothing happens)
Yang: "I think your cat ears are cute."
(+1 Yang plank)
Yang: "Nailed it! Even though I don't know what 'it' is yet."
Blake: "Maybe it's... saying things we never said... to each other."
Yang shrugs and wordlessly invites Blake to have a turn. I think background music is developing: either lyrics or a backing choir.
Blake has a turn (as a distinct backing-choir pattern emerges). Blake is rewarded with several bridge planks. Yang has a turn, and also gets several planks. This is all adorable and making progress, but not
fast progress, and Yang seems to agree:
"Let's make this quicker. Any big truths we haven't dropped on each other yet?"
(checks Chapter title) I think I know where this is going and I am excite. Blake blushes. The sky around them clears from boring clouds to orange. Yang looks preemptively poleaxed, then both lurch as the bridges pull a hundred metres backward from the central island. Blake makes the increasingly safe assumption:
"Did you just think of something, but didn't say it?"
"That can't be what this is about." (maybe narrating) "It's like... a cliff. And if I do it, I'm just going to... fall."
Editor's note: No! There's been enough falling!
To which Blake, maybe in narration, retorts (how did she know to? is this some kind of bridge telepathy?) "I think we're already falling." Outside narration, she continues: "Just... say it, Yang." Yang takes a deep breath, and says it. Blake was only waiting for that cue to also say it. (Lyrics!) Suddenly they're both on the central island, which, contrary to its prior barren appearance, suddenly has a mild coating of grass and flowers. There is only one fit and proper next action here.
Wait for it.
Wait for it...
(raucous cheering from the comments section)
Okay, fine, I'll get behind this (metaphorical) kind of falling.
Camera tilts up from the increasingly verdant island (and aren't the blooming flowers a fine metaphor)...
Back on the 'ground', the Curious Cat reappears, and Ruby immediately confronts them. They're (the Cat) not very bothered. Weiss gets angry at them for pretending it hadn't heard of the fairy tale when in fact Jaune had already told them, to which they (the Cat) just insult Jaune, which isn't going to go well for anyone.
Ruby very directly asks what happened to Alyx and Lewis at the tree. The Cat says they (the Cat) don't know, and that Alyx tricked them (the Cat) by not taking them with, then segues into accusing Team RW+J of seeing them (the Cat) as a mere knowledge source just like they saw Team RWBY. (Goodness me it's getting confusing trying to pronoun a character of questionable gender interacting with a group.) They (the Cat) ignore Ruby pleading that they (Team RWBY+J) just want to go home, stalking off while declaring that they've (the Cat) "learned their lesson" about trusting Remnantfolk. Right. Sure. Every possible level of "Sure /s".
The Cat disappears, and so does the punderstorm, leaving Team RW+J+L (and Juniper, who was also there the whole time, they just didn't say much) on the road again. Ruby looks around and immediately notices Blake and Yang, who are still busy and have not the slightest bit noticed the change in scenery. Little's noticing gasp draws Bumblebee out of it:
Yang: "Did we miss anything?"
Jaune: "Feels like I've been waiting forever for that."
I bet the writers felt real clever about that line.
It is night, but Team RWBY+JJ+L have made it to Jaune's village. It is unclear how Ruby or Weiss feel about Bumblebee, at least for the moment. A distraction arrives for Ruby in the form of Jaune, carrying a box containing something he safekept for her.
It's Crescent Rose. Now Team RWBY really is complete again.
Ruby barely even looks buoyed in spirit. That's not good.
As Jaune leaves, Ruby asks him what happened to Lewis, to which Jaune says:
"I think Alyx traded him to the tree, in order to leave. And then she wrote him out of the story."
The last visual of the Chapter is Ruby closing the box. She hasn't even taken Crescent Rose out. I'm seeing a trajectory here and I do not like it one little bit.
To be very clear: I think Ruby has entered what's effectively suicidal ideation. She's heard that she couldn't save Atlas, Creation, or even Penny; she's been through the ordeal with the Herbalist where a hallucination of her past self has encouraged her to carry the entire world on her shoulders; the conversation with the Blacksmith, where she was encouraged to "set [her] burden down", is still ringing in her ears. Now she's been briefed about Ascension - the thing that it turns out the Cat was guiding them all towards the entire time - and on Jaune's theory that Alyx sold out Lewis to escape the Ever After. I believe - and holy cow do I hope I'm wrong - that Ruby has decided to trade her life for the others' escape. That this would entail Ruby's death, of personality even if not of body, does not seem like it will stop her anymore.
(shivers)
...Why is it that everything always goes to hell right after I type "
(raucous cheering from the comments section)"?
Next time: Other things that have been trying to happen for a while.
