Apparently the title card itself was a Chapter-2-only thing, because here it isn't. I wonder if they meant to have it as a Chapter-1-only thing and forgot it at the time.
Anyway, Ruby, pursuing Weiss to the Beacon landing pad, shouts what we're all thinking:
"Weiss, what is the big deal? Who is it? Who is 'she'?!"
"Winter," says Weiss. Yep, I guessed it. Weiss proceeds over to greet her sister in a notably Ruby-inspired fashion (as tends to happen when you've spent the majority of a year living with Ruby instead of Winter). This feels like it will result in me cringing some more.
Okay, no cringe yet, just Winter (who definitely is in the titles) being super-formal and making me sad on behalf of Weiss. Scratch that, now I'm just in pain on behalf of Ruby. Okay, I changed my mind, now I'm feeling both of those things. Oh no Weiss you just got to Winter-acceptable levels of formality don't discard it now! (She did.) "The government and school are completely separate can you believe it?!" Well, now I have several concerns.
Winter, you already chastised her, there was no need to stick the knife in and twist it like that. Unless you think you're
actually a better sparring instructor than Glynda Goodwitch, in which case there was still no need to do it in front of your guards (yes, there is at least one non-robot, and I'd guess two).
A bit of fine camera work going on here - Winter is always pictured from below so she looms over the viewer, and the wind or something is always slightly stirring the camera.
Well, this has taken a turn for the weird, starting with the use of "boob" as an insult and escalating from there. Is this really a conversation to be held on a public landing pad? If you thought Weiss was being undermined by being chastised on her im-literally-perfect arena combat, wait 'til she gets asked about her
diet!
And here's Ruby to overcome all obstacles to making a poor first impression.
This does not stop Winter from keeping it weird. "I wish to thank you for taking an interest in my sister." The absolute phrasing.
Winter will be inspecting the Team RWBY dorm room. This will end in tears and/or death (by "bunk bed"). Ruby's just trying her hardest to remember her big words. Oh Ruby.
Slightly ominous music as the camera angle implies somebody is sneaking up on the back pair of robot guards. Said robots have no situational awareness and are subject to a fate subtitled as "*Robots getting dismantled*". It takes the front pair of robots - and the Schnees beyond - a concerning amount of time to realise this is happening.
And now it is once again sexual harassment time. Not that Winter can't defend herself, but still. Weiss intercedes anyway and gets manhandled for her trouble (thankfully only by her forehead).
This is the drunk guy from last episode. He sure seems drunk, and apparently these two have some kind of history? Not to mention he's racist against robots. I know there's a better word for that but it eludes me. And his name is not just pronounced "crow", but now that it has been spoken it's fair game to read it off the subtitles, and the subtitles (who have previously just called him "Man") now reveal that his name is actually Qrow. I find it unlikely that there is more than one person in this setting named Qrow, but the alternative is that this guy is Ruby and Yang's uncle whom Ozpin trusts to do his covert ops.
Anyway, Winter and Qrow appear to have some kind of history, and Weiss is pretty surprised by that.
The fighting words continue. It does seem from some of them that this is the Qrow who is in Ozpin's confidence. Not sure if he should be, given how much dirty laundry he's threatening to air halfway in from the Beacon launch pad. Not that Winter's doing much better - her only concession to information security is to try to dismiss Weiss. Never mind any of the public (or, god[s] forbid, Team CEM) who might overhear something - there are quite enough bystanders near Qrow. Who is continuing to behave in a manner that suggests Vale and Atlas either have unexpectedly strong speech protections for places where the wrong speech risks everybody's death by Grimm, or just aren't quite willing to test them in each other's legal systems - but give them some time and Winter might test them herself. Okay, she's doing it already. Trial by combat!
Winter charges so suddenly and so fast that she might be mistaken for Ruby. Qrow doesn't even draw his weapon for the first ten seconds or so, preferring to dodge by just enough to make a mockery of her sword skills in front of an increasingly engrossed crowd. Then he gets serious. Winter does her own dodging, but whether or not she's actually having any difficulty, she seems to be putting much more effort in. This relative lack of economy would work to her disadvantage in an official spar; but this is an unofficial spar and now the centre of attention on Beacon's campus, so it instead works to her disadvantage by continuing to look lame in the eyes of the crowd.
The fighting gets onto an even keel. Ruby reappears as if summoned, and confirms to us that it is her uncle Qrow - Weiss, who was hoping to reinforce the narrative that "some crazy guy just started attacking my sister", is a bit crestfallen.
Mercury appears, gets a load of the fighting, and hastily disappears. Sorry (not sorry), too late for any juicy secrets.
Winter leaves via glyph just in time to avoid Qrow smashing a crater in the road. Qrow follows her down to the dirt alongside and topples one of the old decorative pillars alongside the road. I wonder how old that was. Winter is now putting up a much more impressive-looking fight than he is, with smoother moves (like standing on the flat of his weapon!) that give her a great deal more air time. We know that air time is bad because you can't change direction, but it looks cool, and Winter has a glyph for that just like Weiss does.
I take it back, now Winter's running away (on an elevated feature) and Qrow's encouraging it with gunfire. Eventually he seems to score a direct hit that leaves a cloud of fog behind... but he correctly surmises that she's up to something. That something is to come flying out of the cloud straight at him. I'm going to be disappointed if she doesn't change direction by glyph or recoil-boost or
something.
Winter unfurls her sword into two swords, but still makes a head-on attack with them. My disappointment is merely measurable but still significant.
The stonework on which Qrow was standing does not survive the experience, so they both make another crater in the landscape. Even this doesn't stop either of them.
Winter makes some distance and pulls out a glyph that generates a flurry of spectral birds, which arguably do a better job of harassing Qrow than anything else so far. Eventually her concentration is broken by needing to dodge an energy wave from off the edge of Qrow's sword or something. This makes Winter angry; she summons another glyph behind herself that, uh, looks cool? Qrow, in response, unfurls his sword into the rumoured Elder Gunscythe, progenitor of Crescent Rose. Then he refurls it and stows it, to the audible disappointment of the audience, and just goads her in. I'm guessing he knows something that we don't and she should. Winter, goaded, charges in to attack him - not sure why she needed the glyph for that, given she went just as fast without it at the start of the fight - on second thought, maybe she's tired now. It would explain why she didn't stop to think what Qrow knew and she didn't.
What Qrow knew is that General Ironwood has finally been drawn to the commotion. So now Winter looks unhinged in front of her CO (doubly so for having thrown the first sharp edge way back when) and Qrow has (minimal) street cred for deescalating just before they were caught.
Penny just has no words for any of this.
Ironwood nearly gets verbally stuck into Qrow himself, but it is at this point that Ozpin and Goodwitch finally show up:
Ozpin: "Now, now, everyone. There is a sanctioned fight happening just around the corner at the colosseum, that I can assure you has better seats. And popcorn."
Goodwitch: "Break it up, everyone! We will take care of this mess."
Not that there
is anything happening at the Colosseum right now - the day's matches are over - but I see what Ozpin was going for there.
Ironwood salvages what little of Atlas' dignity he can by ordering everyone under his jurisdiction to leave the scene with him. I predict much shouting in their near future. Ruby then finally gets to talk to Uncle Qrow - we see where Weiss half-learned that greeting technique from - but only briefly, because Ozpin wants to be disappointed at him elsewhere. Meanwhile, Goodwitch is
still relegated to road repair crew.
Weiss is totally not mad. Totally.
In the Gears Office, there are no bystanders, so Ozpin and Ironwood's respective factions can finally tear verbal strips off each other like they really wanted to. Qrow, in particular, gets irritated at having his competence in his field questioned. And fair game to him if he can put that kind of beatdown on Atlas' actual finest while drunk.
Atlas' actual finest is not impressed at being dismissed from the conspiracy meeting; but she follows orders, and Qrow has enough of a point to convince Ironwood to order her to go.
Qrow, who evidently is Ozpin's covert ops guy as well as Ruby and Yang's uncle, says that their "infiltrator isn't just another pawn, they're the one responsible for Autumn's condition" (whatever that means), which rather startles Goodwitch, and follows up with a grand as-you-know speech about how they and only they keep the world safe from the horrors nobody knows about (as opposed to the Grimm, the horrors everybody knows about). I was joking about the conspiracy meeting, but they're clearly not. Qrow does have a point that he gets to, which is that Ironwood's travelling air force risks blowing their collective cover.
It is now time for
michaelb958's Tangentially Related Storytime.
Parliamentary procedure, variants of which are used everywhere from the smallest hobby clubs to the most powerful legislative bodies on the planet, prescribes a way things are done. Motions (or resolutions, which are motions but written down) are first
moved by a member of the parliamentary body. Most motions are then debated, which is members of the body taking turns to talk about them. Many are then voted on by the body to see whether they pass or not (sometimes - especially for interpreting the rules - the chair of the meeting gets to unilaterally decide, and the most anyone can do about it is try to force out the chair). The rules specify what happens to which.
Some motions, like amendments, can only be moved while another one is being debated (at which point they go on a virtual stack). Some can only be moved while nothing else is being debated. Some don't care. The rules probably also have something to say, explicitly or implicitly, about when and for how long members can speak during debate.
In 1789, when the United States Senate was created and set its first rules, one of the tools in its toolbox was the "motion to put the previous question". This could only be moved during debate on something else, could not be debated itself, and if it passed it ended debate and forced an immediate vote on the something else. Over the first about eighteen years it was used about three times. One President of the Senate adopted the viewpoint that something so infrequently used clearly wasn't necessary, and started an ultimately successful campaign to abolish it. The problem was it had been the only way to force an end to debate. This went largely unnoticed for three decades; then somebody who didn't like a motion got up and talked all day to stall it, and the majority who wanted to pass that motion realised there was no way to make that guy shut up. And so the filibuster was born.
So when Ironwood says "Discreet wasn't working," I say he's also mistaking a lack of visible results for a lack of
any results. Perhaps it was working, y'know, discreetly.
Ironwood plugs his phone into Ozpin's desk to summon a hologram in the bulk of the office space, purely as visual accompaniment to his statement that he's a hard man making hard decisions. Qrow retorts that the only hard decision was Ozpin reading him (Ironwood) in. Ironwood asserts that armed forces make people feel safe, which really is something that only the armed forces would say. Ozpin is among those who disagree, pointing out that people will wonder about the expected attack that needs this kind of defence. Ironwood was somehow not expecting this line of thought. Ozpin says they'll find a "guardian" instead. We'll see what he means by that later, I guess.
The eagle-eyed may notice that when Ironwood picks up his phone again it briefly displays the symbol of a black queen chess piece, and the sharp of memory may remember that as the calling card of the malware that Cinder planted in the CCTS. Welp, they're doomed.
Meanwhile in the exchange student dorm, Team CEM meeting! Mercury was spooked by seeing Qrow. Cinder remains unspooked as ever, declaring that their cover is intact. She then goes on to confirm that the malware has just spread to Ironwood's phone, before dismissing Emerald and Mercury to their rooms (as opposed to the one they're in??) and directing the malware to fix the tournament draw for the doubles rounds. So why did Emerald need to fish Ruby for information when Cinder would have it anyway?
Roll credits, to another concept art montage and some of the Winter-Qrow fight music.
Next time: Continuing concerning implications.