"...and on the wind, Alyx heard one more question: 'What
are you?'"
Summer closes the book, replaces it on the bedside table between her sleeping children, and turns off the light.
Cut to a view of outside, complete with shattered moon. Cut back inside, where Summer is looking out a window. Taiyang wanders down the stairs to chat about the mission on which Summer is abruptly leaving. They do an Ozpin impersonation in unison. "I'll be back soon," says Summer. "I know," says Taiyang. Chances are high that those are the last words they ever said to each other.
Cut to outside, where bird calls herald the arrival of Raven, who asks if Tai suspected anything. Summer reports that she fooled him into thinking it was a "typical mission". I don't like the looks of this. Raven wonders aloud if Summer was going to just ditch her children without explanation, and understandably gets "You're one to talk" in reply. Raven has/had some homemaker variant of imposter syndrome. Summer reckons they won't have to worry about it if this goes right.
Raven makes a portal and they both leave through it.
Cut to the Blacksmith dimension, where Ruby has just had that flashback beamed into her brain by the case containing Summer's weapon and is trying to deal with having her mental construct of Supermum, baker of cookies and slayer of giant monsters, finally shattered. The Blacksmith chides her that she has not been the only person ever subject to high expectations, giving the examples of Alyx and "your mother".
...H*ck me, remember in Chapter 1 when Yang and Ruby said this?
"Damn it... You weren't supposed to be here."
"If you thought we wouldn't come for you then you must have forgotten who raised me."
An ideal that who-raised-Ruby has apparently not lived up to. The trauma train remains in service. No, I'm a bit dumb and it's worse, I managed to forget that functionally Yang did half the Ruby-raising. Not that that makes it any less wrenching for Ruby to get a Summer flashback. The trauma train is more reliable than anything I commute on.
Ruby pushes the case over to shatter (how metaphorical) and demands to know what the Blacksmith is playing at. The Blacksmith insists that that's still for Ruby and only Ruby to decide.
Meanwhile, outside the Tree, it is Jaune's turn to have a Herbalist vision. His past self occasionally flickers into superimposition on his present self; instead he is berated by Alyx, in her first appearance outside the titles or an animatic. The beration doesn't last long; she offers him the opportunity "to be the kind of man he always wanted to be". This is extremely ambiguous. He accepts it anyway.
Jaune stumbles out of the vision smoke in time to see an explosion throw flaming debris off the branch he came from.
Meanwhile, up on the branch, Blake is faring badly under the full attention of Cat!Neo. Fortunately she was just buying time for Weiss and Yang. On the other hand, they can't land a good hit. The festivities are interrupted by Jaune lobbing a branch at them from higher up and shouting at them to "burn the leaves!" - that's the source of the vision smoke.
As a smoke cloud forms around Cat!Neo, they laugh and remind Team ABYS that they're (the Cat) immune to any and all effects of the leaves. Yeah, says Jaune, but Neo isn't. Neo succumbs rapidly, forcing the Cat to abandon body.
Neo stumbles out of the smoke and gets some distance away before collapsing. The Cat is in the smoke cloud making growling noises (absolutely masterful sound balancing has used my headphones, with solely L and R speakers, to make me think that the growling is coming from about 45° anticlockwise of in front of me) that soon develop into more laughter as they emerge in nightmare form and pounce just in front of Team ABYS, knocking them all away.
Cut repeatedly between Team ABYS defending themselves against Nightmare Cat, and the Blacksmith pressuring Ruby to make a choice quickly - either to shed her burdens, or pick "someone who can bear them". I get it, but the vibes are still awful. - Did she just walk past Cinder's old weapons or what?
(Obligatory note that, in the real world where we don't have scriptwriters, time-pressure tactics like this are the hallmark of a scam. Take a deep breath, it might save your life savings.)
Now back outside. With Yang and Blake both on the floor, Jaune attempts an attack, only for Nightmare Cat to king-hit him nearly off the branch again and break his Aura. Juniper interposes herself as Team BYS try to distract the Cat.
Now back inside. Ruby has found Alyx's dagger, and despairs. Then, to Summer's voice (and last known words to Ruby), a weapon on the opposite side of the ring shines a bright red and all of the other cases unsummon. You will be shocked (/s) to learn that it is Crescent Rose.
"This one. What happens if I choose ...me?"
"Then maybe that girl is enough."
(Ruby is, sadly, surprised)
Fade to red as Ruby reaches for it. Cut to Team BYS continuing to fight for their lives as Ruby's cocoon, forgotten at the edge of the arena, begins to crack...
Ruby dives through some dark space to grab her weapon as it falls. I'm telling you this is the leitmotif of the Red Trailer and it's great.
Everybody has to shield their eyes at the sudden white light accompanying Ruby bursting free of her cocoon. It seems that she has Summer's rose pin back (
yeeeeeeees). At Team
BYS WBY's absolute incomprehension (and dawning optimism), Jaune (who has regained his breath) tells them that "she knew what she needed to be, all along".
Nightmare Cat declares this to be "perfect" for some incomprehensible reason (does it think she's still broken?), and leaps at Ruby. There follows a good fifteen seconds of Ruby styling on them (lyrics!). It's glorious. At one point the Cat grabs Crescent Rose and tries to grab Ruby, who looks panicked until she isn't, pulling literally her oldest combat trick of Semblancing away from the claws. Serious Red Trailer vibes.
The Cat now realises it's been backed into the middle of a Team RWBY square battle formation.
The styling has only just begun.
Thirty seconds of getting styled on later, the Cat has been knocked out of Nightmare form. It tries some more psychological warfare, and if you think the last attempt bounced off then you ought to see just how ineffective this one is: Team RWBY has found its leader again and is not about to let her go (neither unappreciated nor in any other sense).
Ruby asserts that Team RWBY+J are returning to Remnant and the Curious Cat is staying put. The Cat attempts to pounce on their retreating backs but is intercepted in midair by the pack of Jabberwalkers, which last just long enough to kill it (goodbye, stay dead) before Neo runs dry on spite and collapses again. Ruby spares a backwards look for her before getting group-hugged by Team WBY+J.
Neo is joined by a presumably-illusionary Torchwick who commiserates about her alone-ness. The ensuing 'conversation' has definite airs of being a last goodbye. Sure enough, illusory Torchwick (whom I just typoed as "Trochwick", that's a new one for me) admits he's not real before dissipating into a cloud of pink shards. Team RWBY+J wonder what to do about Neo; she gestures at them with her sword (which unmistakably means 'stay back'), tips Torchwick's hat, and jumps off the branch to parasol-assisted-slow-fall into the liminal void. Any doubts about her fate that might linger after Ruby's line are cleared up by the appearance of a Neo-cocoon before their very eyes. Title sequence foreshadowing strikes again! (I don't know how to feel about this. Is she escaping the law? Yes. Is she escaping more-abstract justice? Maybe. Is she escaping consequences? No.)
Ruby has a remaining problem: "When I was in the tree, I never saw Little.". She has regrets over things left unsaid (and said) to them. Blake wonders again if they've done an Alyx New Game Plus and made things worse for every Acre they passed through; Ruby likes to think they've done "at least a
little good", which is doubtless the writers again thinking they're riotously funny.
Cue a mouse half Ruby's height to dash into proceedings. Ruby immediately reckons that this is Little. They disagree; they don't remember Ruby, or much else of anything, and solicit suggestions on what they are now (and therefore what their name should be). Team RWBY all have suggestions. The mega-mouse decides that they're "somewhat" all of them, and adopts Somewhat as their name.
We now deal with the unspeakable awkwardness of meeting an old friend who has since acquired near-total retrograde amnesia, and having to immediately leave for another appointment. Somewhat does reckon something about Ruby is familiar, "like a happy dream I can't remember". The animators are getting a lot of practice in of characters crying. Somewhat remembers, possibly without realising, that Ruby described herself (partially) as a Huntress, which understandably hits Ruby right in the feels.
Jaune, who will also be leaving the Ever After, now bequeaths Juniper's care and feeding to Somewhat.
There is nothing left for them to do here; Team RWBY+J link hands and simultaneously step through the door to Remnant. ...Or maybe not; they all fall out of a portal in what looks like the Blacksmith's space but that had nice things like
a floor. No! There's been enough falling!
No, wait, here's the floor. They all feather-land and walk in what feels like the right direction. (They land in RWBYJ order, because of course.) Soon they come across the Blacksmith, who has been busy making little figurines of the Ever After's cast of characters, and introduces the place as her workshop. It is Blake's turn to wonder if this is the inside of the Tree, and Ruby's to say it sort-of is.
Jaune steps up to the workbench. "I've been waiting a long time for you," says the Blacksmith. Jaune would like to know if the Cat was the slightest bit telling the truth about Alyx and Lewis. The Blacksmith confirms that only Lewis returned to Remnant, and wrote the fairy tale to depict what he
wished had happened.
Ruby catches sight of two figurines, and wonders aloud if they are the Brother Gods. The Blacksmith confirms it, describing Them as "the Tree's earliest blossoms... The Tree did not foresee what they would become. But that is the joy of creating.". Evidently the Ever After does double duty as the Ever Before. Not surprising given its timey-wimey nature.
Looks like we're getting one last animatic. The Brothers were created as the Ever After's gardeners, clearing its overgrown space and giving roles and resources to its other inhabitants. After a while of this, they started creating their own things - first the Curious Cat to find things that needed cleaning up, then the Jabberwalker to ...clean them up. Then we go on a philosophical speech about balance which I have not huffed enough vision smoke to fully understand; short story shorter, the Jabberwalker does not 'balance' things by destroying them, and the Brothers did not agree on that. {{It has been alleged that this makes the Jabberwalker the first Grimm.}}
The animatic now goes on to extremely clear flower symbolism for Team RWBY. No Jaune? Sad. Anyway, the Tree was a bit tired of the Brothers creating new and disruptive things, so it created that big door and let them through to what would become Remnant, to create things there. And the rest is history. Literally.
Team RWBY+J now have a more accurate understanding of Remnant's cosmology and pantheon than anyone has ever had.
The Blacksmith now, by reference to Somewhat nee Little, gets Ruby to realise exactly how much of a positive impact she's had. Simple actions can have ripple effects for much longer than the actor expected: witness everything that sprung from Alyx breaking her promise to the Curious Cat (and with nobody to send the Cat in for Ascension); and imagine what will spring from Somewhat's empowerment, and effective succession to the Rusted Knight's mantle. Half of this is doubtless going over my head.
Anyway, the Blacksmith is now holding Alyx's knife, and Jaune now sees it. It was "a wish to fix what [Alyx] had broken". Jaune accepts it from the Blacksmith, briefly has a vision of Alyx's ghost or something, and then finds himself de-aged. Status quo is god sometimes, eh.
The Blacksmith lastly opens them a portal, looking a lot like the exit portal into Vacuo. Ruby asks where it will take them. "Not where," says the Blacksmith, "
when you are needed most.". The background music kicks back in, sounding very denouement-y. Ruby is the last through the portal, stopping to thank the Blacksmith. I initially thought she didn't respond, but actually she waved goodbye. Ruby is on speaking terms with the god-in-charge, this is excellent.
Fade to white. Fade to a portal in the sands of Vacuo, from which Ruby emerges to join the rest of Team RWBY+J.
Before them, Vacuo proper. Somebody has dug up half an air fleet from somewhere to stand guard. Over there, somebody has done one better and refloated the entire Amity Colosseum.
Portal closes over the camera. Fade to black. Credits, music continuing.
Alternate credits music, probably:
Next time: The longest post-credits scene.
