| Penny Polendina vs. The Ultra-robots | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Season 9, Episode 1 | |
| Air date | March 4, 2024 |
| Written by | I'm Lynda |
| Episode guide | |
| Previous Krampus (2015) vs Santa Claus (Violent Night) |
Next The Night King vs. The Witch-king of Angmar |
Penny Polendina vs. The Ultra-robots is a What-If? Death Battle by I'm Lynda. It features Penny Polendina from Rooster Teeth’s web series, RWBY, and the Ultra-robots from the Cartoon Network animated series, Samurai Jack.
Description[]
It’s the RWBY-universe versus the Samurai Jack-universe when we pit the finest robots in each against each other!
Interlude[]
Wiz: Warrior-robots, they are a staple of science fiction.
Boomstick: Some are made to defend and some are made to attack. So, let's bring some of the finest robots in each category together, and let them duke it out!
Wiz: In this corner we have Penny Polendina, the robot Protector of the Kingdom of Mantle.
Boomstick: And in this corner we have the aptly named The Ultra-robots, the finest team of assassin robots ever created.
Wiz: I'm Wiz, and he's Boomstick.
Boomstick: And it's our job to analyze their weapons, armor and skills to find out who would win a Death Battle.
Penny Polendina[]
Wiz: Penny Polendina is a gynoid, a robot created in the likeness of a woman, as opposed to an android, which is a robot created in the likeness of a man.
Boomstick: Penny was created by the genius roboticist, Pietro Polendina, at the urging of, and with the assistance of, General James Ironwood and the Atlesian Military.
Wiz: What made Penny so different was that she was fully independent, and could generate an Aura. In the World of Remnant, an Aura is a manifestation of the person's soul, which they can use for offense or defense or for healing. It seems that Pietro had found a way to transfer part of his own soul into Penny.
Boomstick: Anyway, Old Blood and Guts Ironwood decided that it would be a good idea to showcase Penny's abilities at the 40th Vytal Festival in Vale. This festival is an international event held every two years in one of the Kingdoms of Remnant in celebration of the end of the Great War, which had pitted two of the Kingdoms against the other two. Anyway, during the festival, the various cultures of the world are celebrated with dances, parades and, especially, a combat tournament. It was here that Ironwood believed that Penny would shine.
Wiz: Unfortunately for everybody, the Vytal Festival was the center of Salem and Cinder Fall's schemes. They engineered a contest between Penny and superstar Pyrrha Nikos, and then used Emerald Sustrai's illusions to trick Pyrrha into using maximum force against Penny, quite literally cutting her into pieces.
Boomstick: Well, you can't keep a good woman down, and Penny's core was recovered and returned to Pietro, who put it into a shiny new Penny. Penny was then put to work defending Mantle, and she did a great job. That is, until she sided with Pietro and her friends from Vale, seriously pissing off Ironwood.
Wiz: During the course of Penny’s war with the villain Cinder Fall, she succeeded in rescuing the Winter Maiden, a woman with extra special powers, and when she died she passed on those powers to Penny. At that point, Penny was at the peak of her powers, but, sadly, her zenith was also the start of her fall.
Boomstick: You see, Field Marshall von Ironwood had made something of a deal with the devil, in the form of the villain Arthur Watts. When Ironwood sicced Watts on Penny, he downloaded a virus into her, taking partial control of her, and damaging her combat effectiveness.
Wiz: In an attempt to save the day, Penny’s allies used a magical artifact to create a new, human body for Penny, and transfer her soul into it. At that point, she became a real girl, but it was not to last. Failing in her last confrontation with Cinder Fall, she took her own life, so that she could pass on the Winter Maiden powers to another.
Boomstick: This battle involves the robot Penny, who hit the top of her powers when she became the Winter Maiden. So, let's look at those powers, not to mention her weapons, armor and skills.
Wiz: One of the first things we saw Penny do demonstrated that she certainly had superhuman strength; she stopped a fast-moving truck with her bare hands, bringing it to an instant stop. Later she was strong enough to grab a severed Goliath tusk, and slam it into the ground hard enough to leave it imbedded in the road.
Boomstick: Throughout her fights, Penny demonstrated an ability to tank the kind of hits that would fatally injure a normal person. For example, she was thrown by a giant Grimm called a Goliath, and slammed into the ground taking no apparent damage. She also was able to withstand being thrown through walls several times by Cinder Fall, as well as take one of her explosives to the face without damage.
Wiz: It is not clear how much of this durability is from Penny's mechanical nature. Her father, Pietro, said that she could withstand severe injuries, even dismemberment or decapitation, as long as her core remained intact, which is why she was able to be repaired from the damage that Pyrrha inflicted on her.
Boomstick: The rest of Penny's ability to take damage is no doubt from her Aura. You see, the Aura works kind of like a force field, in that it can be used to protect her from attacks. Apparently, she can even use it to heal minor injuries and even power a Semblance, though unlike many Remnant Hunters and Huntresses she never did show that she had a particular Semblance. But, her Aura has its limits, and it can only withstand so much damage before it up and completely collapses.
Wiz: When it comes to weapons, Penny is equipped with an array of swords that are stored in her back. At a thought, she can deploy these swords, which seem to float around her. She can spin them to create a shield, or she can use them to attack opponents. She can assign them to several different functions. For example, when she was fighting against Roman Torchwick and his gang, she fired two swords into a wall behind her, and then used them to rapidly pull herself backward, while using the remaining swords to shield herself from any fire directed at her.
Boomstick: A really interesting gimmick is that she can spin the swords and use them to generate a directed energy blast, such as the one she used to destroy two of Torchwick's CTOL aircraft, called Bullheads. It was a powerful blast!
Wiz: She can use the swords to anchor herself, or to pull herself around. Now, there's some disagreement as to how many swords Penny has in her arsenal, but she normal seems to keep eight-to-ten in use at any one time. The swords are connected to her with some sort of thin but very strong fibers, the fibers were strong enough to cut Penny herself, when the swords were manipulated by Pyrrha Nikos, but weak enough for the Ace Operatives Specialist Harriet Bree to tear one off of her back.
Boomstick: When it comes to mobility, she has a lot going for her. She can fly, and she can also move so fast that she often sneaks up on people, appearing where they do not expect her to be.
Wiz: Perhaps Penny's ace in the hole is her Maiden Powers. Fria, the old Winter Maiden left her powers to Penny, and she was shown to use them to create storm clouds, hail, lightning, and super-strong gusts of wind. She also was able to fire beams from her hands that encased melting girders in huge blocks of ice, instantly cooling them down.
Boomstick: Yeah, this little girl is one tough customer. She's smart and pretty, is an excellent fight and has an array of dangerous powers. You think that she was tough as just a robot? With the Winter Maiden powers, she is a pushover for snowbody!
The Ultra-robots[]
Wiz: In his many schemes to destroy Samurai Jack, Aku, the Shogun of Sorrow, the Deliverer of Darkness, sent many robot-warriors and assassins against him. But every time he saw the samurai easily chop them down, bringing his schemes to nothing.
Boomstick: Then, one day, Aku hit on a brilliant idea, he would have the greatest living roboticist create a group of robots specifically designed and programmed to kill the samurai. He found Extor, and told him that if he undertook this operation that he would spare his village. But, if he refused, then his village would be utterly destroyed. In other words, he made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Wiz: Well, Exter was the right man for the job. He created eight robots that were each given their own unique weapon, and then were set to studying Jack’s fighting style. As the final step, Aku infused some of his own essence into the robots, giving them inexhaustible power and his own inexhaustible malevolence.
Boomstick: To test them out, Aku sent the Ultra-robots to destroy Exter’s laboratory, and his village. That was not quite the thank-you gift that Exter had been hoping for, but it really was the usual sort of way that Aku acted.
Wiz: The Ultra-robots then set out to confront Samurai Jack. To draw the samurai to them, they began massacring whole villages, and as they had expected, he sought them out.
Boomstick: Jack drew his magical katana, the one that had been forged by the gods Odin, Ra and Rama, and attacked the robots. Unfortunately, he found that he could not even seem to scratch them. Frankly, he was darn lucky to escape that encounter with his life.
Wiz: Hiding in the remains of a nearby village, Jack was approached by Extor, who explained the origins and powers of the Ultra-robots. Jack was ready to throw in the towel, but Extor explain that the problem was not that Jack's sword could not damage the robots, but that his arm was not strong enough to do damage with the sword. So, Extor gave him his last invention, a special robotic gauntlet that increased his strength, and allowed him to penetrate the robots' armor.
Boomstick: So, Jack went out, and confronted the Ultra-robots again. This time, he was able to use his skills and speed against them, and use his sword to destroy each of the robots that he got within an arms' reach of.
Wiz: Unfortunately, before he could finish off the final robot, Extor's robot arm ran out of energy, seemingly leaving him at the Ultra-robot's nonexistent mercy. Jack prayed to his ancestors, and they blessed him by infusing him with divine holy energy. Using this power, he cut the last robot clear in half, ending the Ultra-robots' menace once and for all.
Boomstick: In terms of their basic chassis, the Ultra-robots are all identical. They have a thin, metal body that is apparently entirely made of that famous metal, adamantium.
Wiz: Now, adamantium is famous for being the metal that is fused to the bones of Marvel Comics' famous superhero, Wolverine. It is, supposedly nearly indestructible. However, Samurai Jack is not from the Marvel universe, so an important question is, is the adamantium that they are made out of the same indestructible metal that Wolverine is famous for?
Boomstick: Adamantium is not only found in the Marvel universe, it is also found in the world of the Elder Scrolls, the series of video games by Bethesda Game Studios. In that universe, adamantium is a silver metal that is harder than steel, but not truly indestructible. Heck, it's not even the hardest metal in the games.
Wiz: In the Samurai Jack episode, we see that not only can Jack's sword cut the adamantium of the Ultra-robots, but a hit from Exter's gauntlet can cause the adamantium to shatter. As such, the metal seems to be harder than normal steel, but it's not at all indestructible.
Boomstick: OK, the Ultrabots are not made out of "Indestructible-ium," but they are quite hard. When they attacked the robot city, it was shown that they were fired on by multiple cop-bots, and the bullets simply bounced off of these monsters.
Wiz: They were, however, subject to damage from their own weapons. When Samurai Jack faced them for the second time, he didn't just rely on his robot arm, he used tactics to place himself between the Ultra-robots, tricking them into firing at each other, and they were very successful in damaging each other with their weapons.
Boomstick: The 'Bots also have a few extras in the vision department. Not only is their vision acute, but they can switch to a telescopic view, and they can see in the infrared spectrum, meaning that you can't hide in the dark from them.
Wiz: Another extra is that they can move very fast and jump high and far, and being robots they never tire. As a matter of fact, while Extor's robot arm ran out of energy, the Ultra-robots never did. They are powered by the magic of Aku, which seems to give them an infinite amount of energy.
Boomstick: And, even without their weapons, the robots have shown that they are quite capable of dealing some major pain with just their fists. But, let's talk about their weapons, because that's where these bad boys actually differ from each other.
Wiz: First there is the one called the Flamethrower Ultra-Bot. Instead of hands, this robot has a pair of flamethrowers at the end of its arms, and it can use them to project a flaming liquid a long distance. It can also project an intense heat from around its body, setting everything nearby on fire, which is particularly devastating when the robot runs through structures and groups of people.
Boomstick: The second robot is called the Chain Claw Ultra-Bot. It has razor-sharp blades instead of fingers at the end of its hands, and it can launch these hands a long distance. They are connected by chains to the 'bot so that they can quickly be retracted and launched again.
Wiz: The third one is known as the Exploding Cord Ultra-Bot, and its weapon is that it can fire lengths of detonating cord at an opponent. Detonating cord is also known as detonation cord or primer cord; it is a plastic tube filled with an explosive that detonates when the robot wishes. It can fire the cord near an opponent, or even score a direct hit, causing the cord to wrap around an opponent and then detonating.
Boomstick: Robot #4 is known as the Shuriken Ultra-Bot. You see, its weapon is that it can fire a barrage of razor-sharp shuriken at very fast speeds.
Wiz: The next one is called the Gatling Ultra-Bot. Like its brother robot, the Pyromaniac Ultra-Bot, this one also has weapons instead of hands. Its weapons are two very powerful Gatling guns, or more correctly, rotary machine guns that fire very powerful rounds. During its battle with Samurai Jack, it was tricked into firing on the Exploding Cord Ultra-Bot, blasting his adamantine armor to pieces.
Boomstick: And then there is the Power Saw Ultra-Bot. This bad boy also has weapons instead of hands, but in its case, it has a pair of powerful buzz saws. This makes it a formidable hand-to…uh, saw, fighter. These saws are so powerful that they can cut through solid rock.
Wiz: The seventh robot is somewhat different than the other Ultra-robots, and is called the Gauntlet Ultra-Bot. This one fights exclusively with its fists, having large fists that can smash rocks apart. And not only that, but it is also equipped with some sort of cloaking device that renders it completely invisible. This robot actually succeeded in pummeling Samurai Jack, and was only defeated because Jack was able to see its footprints in the sand that they fought on, and he was able to cause another damaged robot to spray its inky fluids on it, rendering it quite visible.
Boomstick: The final Ultra-robot is called the Katana Ultra-Bot. Instead of having an attached weapon, it fights with a special, black katana. It was an excellent swordsman that actually succeeded in standing up to Samurai Jack, forcing him backwards. Jack succeeded in defeating this robot last of all, and only because the power granted him by his ancestors allowed him to cut clear through the robot's sword and even the robot's chassis.
Wiz: Individually, these robots are very powerful and very dangerous. But, what makes them one of the most dangerous foes that Samura Jack faced is that they fight as a team. They use their weapons together to overwhelm an opponent through the sheer application of absolutely devastating firepower.
Boomstick: There is no "I" in this team, just a fantastic amount of hate and firepower. When it comes to assassin robots, these are without a doubt the Ultra-robots!
Intermission[]
Wiz: Alright the combatants are set; let’s end this debate once and for all.
Boomstick: It’s time for a DEATH BATTLE!
DEATH BATTLE![]
Pre-Fight[]
Penny Polendina flew over the fields and plains of Mantle, following a trail of destruction. She had seen village after village that had been totally destroyed, leaving her to find nothing more than a stray survivor here or there who could tell her what had happened.
Instead of being attacked by the usual Grimm, these villages had been attacked by a group of killer robots. They had the same red eyes as Grimm, but they were not modeled on animals, as one would expect.
Well, whether these things were Grimm or not, Penny was determined to eradicate them. After all, she was the Protector of Mantle!
She swooped down low, perceiving what appeared to be eight baskets sitting out in an otherwise empty desert.
The moment that her feet touched the ground, arms and legs sprouted from the baskets, and they seemed to unfold themselves as robots. She had found her quarry. They stood silently, regarding her with their glowing red eyes.
"Why did you destroy all those villages?" Penny asked the Ultra-robots.
"To lure you to us," one of the bots stated.
In an identical voice another robot added, "To draw you to us."
"Me?" Penny asked in confusion.
"Yes," a third robot answered, "We have been hunting you. We will destroy you."
Penny narrowed her eyes and answered, "Your search is over. I'm combat ready!"
The hatch on her back opened, and her ten swords deployed around her like a halo of steel.
FIGHT! []
The Ultra-robots lifted their weapons, as Penny pinwheeled her arms, causing her swords to swirl in front of her.
The Shuriken Ultra-Bot sent a stream of projectiles hurtling towards her, which she blocked with practiced ease. And when the Gatling Ultra-Bot opened fire as well, she merely adjusted the movement of her swords to block those bullets as well.
Then, the Exploding Cord Ultra-Bot sent a rope in her direction. It landed flat on the desert sand and lay there. Penny had time to glance down at the cord before it exploded in a huge concussion, sending her flying backwards, her swords in disarray.
She looked up just in time to see the Flamethrower Ultra-Bot unleash a stream of napalm in her direction. She instantly fired the rockets in her leg, sending her flying away from the attack.
She had realized that fighting these robots in the featureless desert would allow them to combine their various attacks, coming from different directions, to overwhelm her defenses. She needed a way to narrow their approaches and limit their avenues of attack.
Of course! Nearby was the town that the evil robots had just destroyed. She just needed to bait them into the town.
She wheeled in her flight, and angled towards the town. Then, she terminated her rockets, causing her to flop to the ground in an ungainly manner. Getting up, she ran the rest of the way to the village, calculating that this act would convince the robots that she was damaged, and encourage their pursuit.
Seeing her flight, the Ultra-robots immediately began marching towards the village. Their metal faces betrayed no emotion, but their unwavering march demonstrated their determination.
Arriving in the village, the Ultra-robots looked around, seeking to reacquire their target. They switched to infrared viewing, but the fires scattered around the dwellings appeared too bright, blocking any benefit it might have given them.
Without a word, the robots split into four groups of two, and began to move through the village.
Penny peered around the damaged building at the two robots moving up the rubble-filled street. The one robot clutched a black katana, while the other one seemed to have nothing in its hands.
At the last moment, she stepped out into the street, her swords swirling through the air. The Katana Ultra-Bot raised his sword, and parried the first one that flew in its direction, but the other swords hit it, sending it flying to the side.
She turned towards the other robot, but it seemed to waiver...and then it disappeared!
Penny turned to the left and the right, trying to find where the robot had gone to. Her electronic hearing detected the sound of someone walking, but she could see nothing. She switched to infrared vision, but that did not seem to help.
Suddenly, she was struck by a titanic blow that turned her head to the left. Then, another blow landed, turning her head to the right. She was struck again and again, until one blow struck her abdomen hard enough to send her flying up the street.
Penny leaped to her feet, in time to see puffs of dust rising from the street. The invisible robot was coming for her!
Quickly spinning eight of her swords around herself, to hold the robot away, she fired the other two swords far up the street. The swords struck a building, burying themselves in its outer wall. Then, she activated the retrieval mechanism in her chassis, pulling herself back to the swords in a matter of seconds. She quickly released the two swords.
Looking to her right, Penny gasped. The Power Saw Ultra-Bot swung at her, and she leaned back in time to let the saw pass close enough to her face for her to feel the breeze caused by its passing. She backed away from each attack, as it swung its saws at her again and again.
Then, a stream of bullets struck Penny, sending her stumbling forward. She ducked down as she passed the Power Saw Ultra-Bot, causing its next swing to pass harmlessly over her head. She stumbled to her knees in the street.
Thinking quickly, she spun her swords using them to first knock the legs out from under the Power Saw Ultra-Bot and then using them to knock over the Gatling Ultra-Bot.
It was then that she saw the Flamethrower Ultra-Bot charging up the street, aimed right at her. Its body radiated heat and flame, its passing setting all of the flammable materials around on fire.
Green flames erupted from her eyes and a tornado of cold and ice swirled around her. She rose into the air as the tornado gathered force. Its wind swept the Power Saw and Gatling Ultra-Bots away, while the Flamethrower Ultra-Bot slowed its charge towards her. As it slowed, the flames died out and its heat seemed to just disappear in the sub-freezing wind.
The Flamethrower Ultra-Bot raised its arms and fired a stream of napalm into the icy tornado, but it was carried away. The Exploding Cord Ultra-Bot stepped up and fired a cord towards the girl in the tornado. It was carried up and away by the wind, and it exploded harmlessly in the sky.
Penny looked down at the robots and realized that she had made a tactical error. She did not want them spread out, she wanted them together!
She landed on the ground, entirely surrounded by a wall of ice that her Maiden Powers had created.
Activating her jets, she shot forward, and crashed through the ice-wall. Immediately, she flew between the Flamethrower Ultra-Bot and the Exploding Cord Ultra-Bot, knocking them both flying backward. Then she flew into the Katana Ultra-Bot, and the two went down in a heap, rolling across the dirt of the road.
Simultaneously deploying her swords and leaping to her feet, she saw the Gauntlet Ultra-Bot in front of her. It was visible again! She quickly swung her swords, which slammed into the robot, sending it flying to the side.
Immediately, a clawed hand shot past her on a chain, the claws tearing three jagged rips in her dress.
Penny turned, but before she could do anything, the Gatling Ultra-Bot opened fire, its withering fire driving her backward. The Power Saw Ultra-Bot was charging forward, while she could see the other Ultra-Bots readying to add their firepower to the onslaught.
It was now or never, she realized.
Green flames erupted from her eyes, and instantly green and white energy exploded out from her smashing several nearby walls, and knocking the Ultra-Bots down.
Penny activated the rockets in her feet, and sent herself flying backward up the street. But, as she flew, she thrust her hands toward Ultra-Bots. Streams of cold flew out from her hands, sweeping across her opponents. And, as the streams washed across them, the robots were encased in ice crystals that grew larger and larger around them.
Penny landed in the street, and deployed her swords from her back. She brought them forward, and put them into a spin, and immediately green energy began to form between them. She pulled her arms back, and then thrust them forward.
The green energy shot forward, down the street, beams of green light slicing through the air. The ice seemed to explode, shattering into a storm of tiny ice crystals.
As the crystals drifted down, clearing the air, Penny could see that the Ultra-Bots had also shattered. A viscous black oil ran from the broken robots. Penny recoiled from oil, which seemed to contain an evil all its own.
K.O.! []
Penny looked around at the destroyed village and reflected on the waste of what the killer robots had done. She could not begin to understand why they had done it.
Meanwhile, the black liquid flowed across the ground and away, disappearing into the distance.
Back in his volcanic headquarters, Aku screamed in frustration. Yet another of his plots was foiled!
Results[]
Boomstick: Oh, got 'em. Tell me, Wiz, how did that happen?
Wiz: This was actually a fairly even fight. The Ultra-robots were a formidable team of fighters. Their different weapons systems gave them the ability to attack in different ways, making it hard, if not impossible, for an opponent to fend them off.
Boomstick: And their ability to cooperate quickly as a team meant that they could pretty much always bring overwhelming firepower to bear on any one point.
Wiz: And, in many instances they would be able to overwhelm even Penny Polendina's defenses. However, it was far from a given that they would be able to consistently do so.
Boomstick: Robot Penny was probably no match for the Ultra-robots. As a matter of fact, it did seem that fighting against multiple opponents was not her strength. Indeed, when she fought the Ace Operatives, a team of Hunters and Huntresses from Atlas, she proved unable to overcome them herself. She needed the timely intervention of Team RWBY to see her through.
Wiz: But, the addition of the Winter Maiden's powers made Robot Penny even more powerful. Even through the Ultra-robots fought as a tightly cooperating team, the Maiden powers gave Penny a deeper toolbox that she could reach into to overcome them. In particular, the powers allowed her to attack them as a group, making them all vulnerable at the same time.
Boomstick: Now, a big question was could Penny's directed energy blast truly damage the Ultra-robots? And that was a crucial question, since it was one of her most potent attacks. It cut through Roman Torchwick's aircraft, but could it cut through the adamantium armor of the Ultra-robots?
Wiz: The answer is that the blast probably could not have damaged them alone. However, the Winter Maiden ice blast that Penny used to instantly freeze the melting girders would have taken the Ultra-robots' adamantium chasses down by many degrees of freedom, making the metal much more brittle. Like when someone dips a steel rod in liquid nitrogen and then shatters it in their gloved hand.
Boomstick: And, as we already saw, the adamantium that they were made of was not the Indestructible-ium of Marvel Comics, but was actually just a particularly hard metal.
Wiz: And so, when they were first super-frozen and then hit with the super-hot cutting force of the energy blast, their adamantium would have been severely weakened, making it possible for Penny to deal with them all quickly, and all at once.
Boomstick: But wait, if Penny couldn't take the Ace-Ops, how was she able to take the Ultra-robots?
Wiz: While the Ace-Ops individually had different powers and weapons to draw on, they could also combine them dynamically during the fight, to attack Penny in different ways and from different direction, the Ultra-robots only had one power…firepower.
Boomstick: And, surprisingly, it just wasn't enough. That's why the winner of this battle is the Winter Maiden that warmed our hearts, Penny Polendina!
