Pyrrha Nikos vs Agent Carolina (RWBY vs Red vs Blue)








“Professional is not a label you give yourself, it's a description you hope others will apply to you.” - David Maister


Pyrrha Nikos, the Invincible Girl!

Agent Carolina, the Master Freelancer!

There exist many dangerous and monstrous beings across many worlds. But fortunately, heroes will always be there to protect humanity for those who can’t protect themselves, whether they be novice or professionals.

These two ladies are known as the best of the best in their field, especially when it comes to combating monsters and aliens and developing relationships with their allies. But when these two professionals cross paths on the battlefield, who will come out on top in a DEATH BATTLE!

Before we begin

The media we’ll be using for both ladies is straightforward. Pyrrha will get the first three volumes of RWBY and any guidebooks, and we’ll be analyzing all seasons of Red vs Blue for Carolina plus the Ultimate Fan Guide from 2015. This will include Seasons 14-17 and Red vs Blue: Zero, since despite being retconned into Epsilon’s simulations, they’re still representations of what could happen and their feats aren’t too far off from the main canon, so they’d be a good way to judge Carolina’s abilities.





The world of Remnant is known for many things, and two of its most defining traits are the Heroes and the Monsters. The Monsters being the Grimm that run wild, slaughtering the innocents. That is where the Heroes come in, the Hunters and Huntresses that slay Grimm and protect humanity from them. Whether it be a professor at a prestigious academy, a leader of a tribe of bandits, or a side member of a team of four, there are many professional hunters out there, including the Invincible Girl herself, Pyrrha Nikos.

Even at a young age, Pyrrha was destined to become the best of the best. She graduated at the top of her class at Sanctum Academy, won the Mistral Regional Tournament four years in a row, and was even the mascot of the Pumpkin Pete’s Marshmallow Flakes cereal brand, her face being front and center on the cereal box. Being a prodigy huntress meant she earned herself a one way ticket to attend Beacon Academy, a school that exists to train the next generation of Hunters and Huntresses.

During her initiation at Beacon, she would meet her dorky adorable knight, Jaune Arc, where despite his clumsiness, Pyrrha expressed interest in teaming up with him. After being launched into the initiation at Emerald Forest, quite literally, Pyrrha saved Jaune from a harmful landing using her skill with her weapon Akoúo̱, pinning him to a tree and thus partnering up with him during their initiation. During this time, she would unlock Jaune’s Aura, which he had suspiciously yet to utilize despite most people going to Beacon knowing how to use their Aura. Later on in their initiation, Pyrrha and Jaune would team up with Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren to assist Team RWBY in fighting two Grimm’s, a Nevermore and a Death Stalker, with Pyrrha and her other three allies utilizing their newly found team synergy to slay the Death Stalker. After the initiation had concluded, Pyrrha was assigned with being part of a hunter team with Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren, with Jaune Arc as their leader, their team name being… Team JNPR.

Pyrrha would spend the rest of her days at Beacon Academy living with her teammates, going to class with them, and utilizing her knowledge about being a Huntress and the world of Remnant to score at the top of her class. It was during this time that Pyrrha learned that Jaune didn’t legitimately get into Beacon, he forged papers to get in, and that he wasn’t that much of a professional swordfighter at all. Jaune did this to follow in the footsteps of his family tree, who were all pro hunters, but he wasn’t. But Pyrrha still saw a warrior within Jaune and helped train him to become a better swordfighter, and even saved him from a Grimm attack, using her Polarity Semblance to help Jaune slay a Grimm.

Over the course of a few months, Pyrrha would face off against the likes of Mercury Black, Team RWBY in a food fight for the ages, and would help protect Vale from a Grimm invasion. But then the Vytal Festival would come, a tournament bringing together all the up and coming Hunters and Huntresses from academies all across Remnant. Pyrrha would fight alongside Team JNPR, defeating Team BRNZ of Shade Academy and advancing to the doubles round of the Vytal Festival. After the Doubles Round, Pyrrha was called to the office of Beacon’s headmaster, Professor Ozpin, who revealed to her that she was chosen to become the next Fall Maiden, a Maiden being a lady that can control a certain magical element relating to one of the four seasons. The current Fall Maiden, Amber, was critically injured and had part of her power stolen because of an attack from the nefarious Cinder Fall. The plan was to use Atlesian Technology to transfer Amber’s Aura and Fall Maiden powers to Pyrrha. Naturally, Pyrrha was concerned of the risks behind this, but was interested in going through with it for the sake of Remnant.

Ozpin let her go so she could think about her choice and when sharing a moment with Jaune, Pyrrha asked Jaune if he believed in destiny. Jaune was bewildered by this question, but Pyrrha told him that she felt her destiny was a goal and not so much a fate and felt like becoming the Fall Maiden would cost who she really is, though she merely implied the Fall Maiden in their conversation and didn’t actually speak up about it. Jaune replied by saying that if Pyrrha believed her destiny was to save the world, she shouldn’t let anything get in the way. But Pyrrha took this the wrong way and begged Jaune to stop, pinning him to the wall using her polarity on his armor. Feeling remorse over this, Pyrrha apologized and ran away in tears.

Pyrrha would then head to the finals of the Vytal Festival, where she would face off against Penny Polendina, who proved to be an even foe for her. However, this was all part of a master plan that would be the beginning of the end for Beacon, and during their battle, Emerald Sustrai would use her illusion Semblance to make Pyrrha see Penny using hundreds of swords and she used her Polarity to reflect them all. But this move would accidentally kill the combat android herself, making Penny’s cords attached to her weapons wrap around her and tear her to shreds.

But the horrors were only just beginning since the city of Vale was under an invasion of Grimm, hacked Atlesian soldiers, the White Fang, Salem’s forces, it was utter chaos for all the citizens present at Vale. Pyrrha, alongside Team JNPR, Team RWBY, and many other Hunters and Huntresses, would help fight off the Grimm and protect the civilians so they could evacuate the city. It was during this time that the transfer process for Pyrrha to become the Fall Maiden had to begin immediately. So her, Jaune, and Ozpin made their way to the Fall Maiden’s vault so the transfer could begin. But it was too late and Cinder killed Amber, gaining the full power of the Fall Maiden.

Ozpin held off Cinder so Jaune and Pyrrha could escape, which cost him his life. After escaping, Pyrrha noticed Cinder standing at the top of the Cross Continental Transit System Tower and decided to go face her. But not before sharing one last moment with Jaune, kissing him and then shoving him into a rocket propelled locker to make sure he would make it out alive. Pyrrha would then face Cinder, now with the full power of the Fall Maiden, and Cinder gave Pyrrha the biggest fight of her life. But unfortunately, it was too much for Pyrrha and she would die at the hands of Cinder, being shot in the heart by her arrow and disintegrated. 

While Pyrrha may be gone, her legacy was never forgotten. Jaune would honor her by having a new shield made for him, forged with the golden accents made from the spare pieces of Pyrrha's armor, and in her memory as a prodigy Huntress, the city of Argus would construct a memorial statue of Pyrrha. To further honor her memory, Jaune would continue to hone his skills as a Hunter taught to him by Pyrrha to become a worthy protector of others and along with Nora, Ren, and Team RWBY, would carry out their mission to help save the world from Salem’s forces.

In the world of Red vs Blue, humanity is under the protection of the United Nations Space Command. For over 23 years, humanity was at war with aliens, and in an effort to win the war, Director Leonard Church put forth the idea of using an advanced AI to produce super soldiers capable of ending the war. Dubbed Project Freelancer, this Special Operations program would be led by none other than Leonard’s own daughter, a woman known only by her codename: Agent Carolina.

Having lost her mom in the Great War at 6 years old, when she was 24, Carolina was among the dozens of men and women signed up to become agents in Project Freelancer. And to properly supply them the AIs they needed, Leonard created one based on his own memories. Dubbed the Alpha, it could perfectly recall everything its creator had experienced, including the grief he felt at losing his wife, Allison, to the war. In its grief-stricken state, Alpha would end up splitting off and creating a fragment of itself based on the Director’s memories of Allison. Inspired by the creation of this “Beta” AI, the Director began torturing the Alpha, continually forcing it into breakdowns so it could in turn produce more fragments.

As her father grew obsessed with the idea of resurrecting Allison, Carolina pushed herself to become the best soldier she could be to get his attention. In time she would become the top-ranking Freelancer on its leaderboard, but her life would inevitably change when she and two other Freelancers were sent on a mission to acquire an alien that would help split the Alpha into even more fragments. It was there that she met her ultimate rival for the next two years: Beta, now refitted as a Freelancer named Agent Texas. 

Viewing her as a rival for her father’s love, Carolina pushed herself hard to prove that she was better than Texas, to the point of causing a high-speed highway crash on foot, recklessly deciding to have two AI fragments implanted in her, and pushing away teammates that she’d never see alive again.

Unfortunately, Project Freelancer would collapse under the weight of its own secrets after some of the AI fragments took over Agent Maine, turning him into the Meta. He nearly killed Carolina by ripping the AI from her neural implant and throwing her over a snowy cliff. After saving herself with a grappling hook, Carolina spent the next 7 years in hiding, fighting in the Great War and on the run until she could find a way to get revenge against the Director.

While Carolina remained in hiding, a group of simulation troopers left with the Alpha did their own work in taking down Project Freelancer. They destroyed most of the remaining AI fragments, stopped the Meta once and for all, and Carolina was going to make them help her find the Director whether they like it or not.

These simulation troopers, the Reds and Blues, had acquired the last remaining AI fragment from Project Freelancer: Epsilon. Epsilon, going by the name Church, was an AI fragment born from the Alpha’s memories. So Epsilon was also a copy of a copy of Carolina’s father, which makes Church Carolina’s nephew. And her brother. And her father. Just not her babysitter.

If you’re confused, just consult this chart:




Being formed from the Alpha’s memories, Epsilon was originally so unstable that he nearly drove the first agent he was implanted in, Agent Washington, to suicide due to Church’s grief. However, he eventually learned to live with his grief and became more stable as time went on. Upon being implanted in Carolina, he initially struggled to get through to her. But as time went on, he helped her to grow past her desire for revenge, and when she finally came face to face with the Director after all those years, she decided to let go of her desire for revenge, just as Epsilon learned to let go of his desire to bring Tex back.

From then on, Carolina and Epsilon strove to do everything they could to right the wrongs of Project Freelancer. Despite initially pushing the Reds and Blues away with her aggression and perfectionism, she slowly learned to appreciate them and helped them stop mercenaries from stealing Freelancer equipment, prevent a planetary civil war, and defeat a technologically superior enemy. In the end, Epsilon sacrificed himself so that the Reds and Blues would be able to escape the final conflict above Chorus.

Beyond that point it’s unclear what’s real or just a simulation, but what is clear is that Carolina is still using her skills to make things right in one way or another.


Experience, Intelligence, and Skill

Pyrrha



For being a young Huntress, Pyrrha is quite the prodigy in her field. Graduating at the top of her class and winning the Mistral Regional Tournament four years in a row before she even got to Beacon and became a part of Team JNPR. While she wouldn’t end up becoming the leader of Team JNPR, she would help its leader, Jaune Arc, become a proficient swordfighter like she is.

Speaking of her proficiency with weaponry, her skills using javelin-rifle and shield combo, Miló and Akoúo̱, are second to none. With Miló, she has shown to have very good precision with it, able to throw it while Jaune was falling from a long distance, accurately hitting his hoodie so she accidentally doesn’t stab him, and pinning him to a tree. With Akoúo̱, she has been able to utilize it as an offensive and defensive weapon, and with her Polarity Semblance, she can ricochet the shield off a target and have it return to her, Captain America style. These two weapons, in combination with her Polarity Semblance skills, made many people believe she was invincible in her battles, hence where she got the Invincible Girl title.

In combat, Pyrrha is a quick thinker, using her combat tactics to easily adapt to her opponents style mid-fight. Using these skills, Pyrrha has battled the likes of Mercury Black, Penny Polendina, and even all four members of Team CRDL at once and defeated all of them single handedly.

Carolina



As part of Project Freelancer, Carolina’s training made her proficient in multiple forms of combat, including hand-to-hand and zero g, and she’s an expert at wielding various firearms and melee weapons. During her 3 years as part of the Project Freelancer, she was easily the top of her field, always being #1 or #2 on the leaderboard.

After her supposed death, she enlisted in the army and fought against aliens in the Great War for around 3 years. She’s fought an entire army of Tex robots with and without help, and even helped end an alien civil war.

She also has a history of infiltrating enemy groups and bases by using her suit’s adaptive camouflage. Church believes she could sneak into a room without setting off its motion sensor.

She’s also skilled enough to use the environment to her advantage like smashing train windows to prevent Sharkface from using his flamethrowers.


Equipment

Pyrrha

Miló and Akoúo̱



A spear and shield that serve as Pyrrha’s main weapons. Miló is a javelin that can transform into a short sword or a long-range rifle. Akoúo̱ is a regular shield that Pyrrha can use both defensively and offensively, usually by hurling it at enemies.

They can also be used in tandem with her Semblance to throw them and immediately recall them to her.



Carolina

Spartan Armor



A set of cyan armor that covers Carolina from head to toe. The armor is based on the Rogue Mjolnir Powered Assault Armor, which is a variation of the Mark VI Mjolnir Powered Assault Armor, an armor that is composed of Titanium. 

The armor can shrug off bullets and is equipped with Grav Boots to let her walk on or affect any surface while in zero gravity or magnetically cling to metal surfaces even when she’s upside down. 

Should the wearer be mortally wounded or knocked out, the armor will enter a state called Recovery Mode, locking her in stasis to ensure her survival until a Recovery agent extracts her or she regains consciousness.


Magnum



An M6 pistol that acts as the standard issue firearm for Freelancers and simulation troopers. It can be loaded with bullets or a paralyzing paint that encases whatever it hits in a quick-drying pink cocoon. This paint is noted to stick to armor and make it hard as a rock, and it stings like a bitch when it hits.

Plasma Rifle



Dual collapsible hip-holstered energy weapons that fire plasma.

Battle Rifle



A military rifle wielded by a majority of the main cast.

Grappling Hook



A gun that fires a grappling hook to let Carolina latch onto distant objects. She can use it to swing through the air, rescue herself or others, prevent enemies from escaping, or combine it with a frag grenade to act an impromptu flail.

Grenade



Carolina’s used these tiny pineapple grenades to blow up a small plane and send it flying toward Sharkface, cause diversions, and create a makeshift flail.

Red vs Blue: Zero has her use a sticky version during her fight with Diesel, and she ends their rematch by strapping multiple to him.


Teleportation Grenade



A type of grenade discovered by Grif in a crashed UNSC ship. They can be set to different frequencies which have a different effect on whatever’s caught in its blast radius, and throwing another grenade will send them wherever it lands. These explosions can teleport anything from people to objects, even if they’re as large as CC. They’ve been used to store weapons and vehicles, crush enemy soldiers under their own jeeps and transport the user and others across Chorus, though it can cause disorientation and mild headaches.

Despite its name, it isn’t actually a method of teleportation. Anyone or anything caught in the blast radius is sent to another dimension and can only be released if a grenade set to the same frequency goes off.


Gravity Hammer



A two-handed melee weapon that Carolina briefly used in her fights with Sharkface and some Insurrectionists. It emits a shockwave to knock back its target whenever it hits something, and she can throw it as an impromptu ranged attack.

Humbler Stun Device



A collapsible stun baton that Carolina wields in her left hand. Hitting a target with it will send volts of electricity through their body, normally leaving them paralyzed. Carolina’s used it against Girlie, Tex, an Insurrectionist Leader, and C.T.

Red vs Blue: Zero has them upgraded and shows her dual wielding them against Diesel.

Jetpack



Typically used for space travel, Carolina can also use this during battle.

Armor Enhancements



A special ability Freelancers have built into their armor. They often require an AI in order to be used properly. See the Abilities section for more details.

Epsilon



More commonly known as Church, Epsilon was a fragment of the Alpha AI that was equipped to Carolina’s armor in her journey to find the Director. As an AI fragment, he’s able to activate Carolina’s armor enhancements, interact with nearby technology, take over the bodies of individuals with neural implants, and process events at incredible speeds to give Carolina an advantage on the battlefield. And being the Alpha’s memory, he can call upon simulations of other AI fragments to communicate with her, form strategies, hack weapons, and determine the best way of avoiding obstacles. These simulation fragments can scan weapons for their schematics and enemies for potential weak points, calculate the trajectory of bullets, or alter the user’s perception of time so they experience years in seconds.


Powers

Pyrrha

Aura



A physical manifestation of one’s soul that possesses a wide range of uses. It is mostly used for defensive purposes and will protect the user as long as it remains up. However, they aren’t protected from sensations like pain or heat.

Aura also possesses some offensive uses, such as providing users with a boost of physical strength and the ability to generate shockwaves. It can even be used on weapons to imbue them with energy and increase their range. But its best usage is the activation of the user’s unique ability called a Semblance.

In terms of other benefits, Aura grants its user a healing factor that lets them regenerate minor wounds like cuts.

Despite its versatility, Aura is not an infinite resource. Using Aura for prolonged periods will cause it to decay, leaving a user weakened or even incapacitated depending on the severity. And should it be fully depleted, the Aura will “break,” leaving the user completely vulnerable to harm and unable to use their Semblance.

Polarity



Pyrrha’s Semblance, which allows her to control metal using magnetism. She typically uses this during battle in subtle ways, such as nudging swords to avoid attacks or pushing shields to the side to allow for an opening to attack. This strategy is what earned her the title of “Invincible Girl,” as she has regularly fought opponents with metallic weapons that her Semblance can exploit. She can also use it in tandem with Miló and Akoúo̱ to throw them at enemies and immediately recall them.

At her full capacity, Pyrrha’s shown the ability to levitate massive amounts of debris at once and can fire them with precise control. This is even the case with aluminum soda cans which shouldn’t actually be magnetic… don’t question it.



Carolina

Speed Boost



An armor enhancement that greatly enhances the user’s travel and reaction speeds. With this, a user can run and jump at high speeds for a short period of time, but without an AI to properly regulate it, the enhancement will have some strange effects on the body.


Healing Unit



A portable unit that can heal Carolina or her allies if they get shot or cut.

Adaptive Camouflage



With this, Carolina can change her armor in any way she sees fit, either to blend in with her surroundings, infiltrate an enemy group, or turn herself completely invisible.

EMP



Also known as an “Emp,” it creates a massive wave of electricity to shut down or completely destroy any technology in Carolina’s surroundings. It’s been used in the past to shut off enemy cannons and vehicles, disable armor enhancements, and completely destroy AIs.

Bioscan



Lets Carolina scan her allies and enemies to check their vital signs and health or identify weak spots.

Bubble Shield



A giant energy shield that can defend against attacks from both the inside and out. It can block bullets, grenades, rockets, missiles, a crashing spaceship, and even a nuclear explosion! Unfortunately, this enhancement also prevents those under it from attacking, as any attempt at shooting will cause the bullet to ricochet and potentially kill them. Though it is worth noting that there are exceptions to this.

When using Theta, North Dakota was able to separate the shield into tiles that block attacks from multiple angles, and he could lower the shield quick enough for Dakota to fire his gun.


Feats

Pyrrha

Overall

  • Graduated at the top of her class at Sanctum
  • Won the Mistral Regional Tournament four years in a row
  • Formed Team JNPR
  • Mentored Jaune to be a better swordsman
  • Defeated all of Team CRDL singlehandedly
  • Proved to be equal to Mercury Black and Penny Polendina (though Mercury was testing her)
  • Made it to the finals of the Vytal Festival

Carolina

Overall

  • Was consistently one of the top members of Project Freelancer
  • Survived being implanted with two AIs without going insane
  • Enlisted as a soldier in the UNSC after her supposed death
  • Worked with the Reds and Blues to defeat the Tex robots
  • Defeated Sharkface
  • Saved the Reds and Blues from a nuclear explosion
  • In Epsilon’s simulations, she survived multiple days in armor lock without food or water, fought her past self, and killed Diesel

Strength




Simulation Feats

Speed



Simulation Feats
Epsilon

Durability




Scaling

Scaling for both sides is fairly simple. Pyrrha and Carolina are the top of their classes and have been depicted as equal, if not superior, to their teammates and friends whenever they worked together. They’ve also been shown fighting evenly with their enemies. As such, it would make sense to scale them to the following people.

Pyrrha

Team RWBY



Group Feats

Yang

Adam


Carolina

Reds and Blues



Blues



Church
Sis


Freelancers



Tex

The Meta



Misc Characters & Red vs Blue Zero




Weaknesses

Pyrrha



Despite being at the top of her class, Pyrrha isn’t an A+ huntress. She does have a bit of a tendency to let her emotions get the better of her, like when she was struggling with her belief in destiny when talking with Jaune. When Jaune tried to comfort her, Pyrrha reacted to this by pushing him back with her polarity, but she felt sorry and ran away crying.

She also puts herself above others to a fault, like when Cinder had the full power of the Fall Maiden, instead of retreating or fighting together, Pyrrha decided to send Jaune away to get him out of harm's way as she confronts Cinder. This is ultimately the main reason she dies to Cinder, because she felt she had to fight back in a battle she stood little chance in winning on her own.


Carolina



While she may have been in the top ranks of the leaderboard, Carolina’s by no means a perfect agent. She’s a perfectionist and will push herself to the point of injury to prove her worth as a soldier. She can also become more reckless when she’s worried about losing her friends, to the point of overexerting herself and Epsilon. This closeness to her friends also had an effect on her physical abilities, as she became weaker over time according to her past self.

Her durability’s a bit inconsistent, because even with her insane endurance, a strong enough blow to the head will still knock her out.

Epsilon’s also not entirely flawless as a partner. While he can come up with strategies mid-battle and analyze Carolina’s opponents, he’s failed to account for hidden blades or enemies faking defeat in the past. He can also be destroyed if exposed to an EMP and will start glitching and briefly shut down if Carolina overuses her armor enhancements or runs too many at once.


Before the Verdict

Adam’s relativistic feat

While it might be strange to scale Pyrrha to someone she had never fought before, the logic is sound. Blake was able to intercept a strike from Adam in Volume 3 in their first fight. Yang was also able to easily keep up with Adam in their rematch in Volume 6. During said rematch, Yang explicitly says that, while she didn’t get any faster from their last fight, she did get smarter. Pyrrha, being one of the top fighters at Beacon, should easily scale to Beacon era Blake and Yang in terms of speed.

The Multi-City Block mine calc

Red vs Blue: Restoration, episode 18, “Rally Cap” has a scene near the end where Doc, Washington, and the Meta are all caught in a ring of mines set by Tex. In the next episode, “Reunion,” we see that all three survived, with the worst damage being some minor bleeding from Wash. A calculation of this feat got Multi-City Block results based on these explosions Tex triggers later in the episode, but there’s a major flaw with it.

If you look at the footage, the ring of explosions was caused by mines, while the cliff-destroying explosions from the calc are clearly a different model of explosive triggered by remote-control. There’s nothing in the episodes to suggest the mines have the same kind of power (especially when you compare the size of their explosions), so you can’t scale the cast to the cliff’s destruction. Thus the feat is inapplicable.


The megaton bomb feat

In Season 3, Episode 5 “Mark Your Time,” the Reds and Blues are caught in an explosion from Sarge’s 10 megaton bomb. Sarge later hypothesizes that the bomb combined with the power of his weather machine to form a temporal cascade that sent the Reds and Blues into the future and destroyed the present. The next episode, “We Must Rebuild,” reveals that Lopez and Doc also came out of the explosion unharmed. On the surface this sounds pretty straightforward. The Reds and Blues survived a megaton bomb at close range, so that would make them city level, and Sarge’s time statements could potentially make the feat Universal. What’s the problem?

As the series progresses and starts to become more story driven, the writers completely retcon it. In Season 7’s “Catching Up,” one of the higher ups shows Donut the place where they landed after the bomb went off. He calls it “the new location where your team was assigned” and gets confused when Donut starts talking about being sent to the future. Then in Season 8’s “Tenth Percentile,” it’s revealed the entire time travel plot was just one of the many training simulations for Project Freelancer.

Alright, so that makes the time travel and Universal arguments invalid. What about the megaton bomb itself? It’s easily the most direct and impressive durability feat in the series, but compared to other durability feats in the series, it’s nothing more than an outlier. The closest equivalent to the cast surviving a megaton bomb is Tex surviving Andy the Bomb, which has its own problems. Tex did survive this explosion, but she wasn’t at its epicenter, and going by the footage, the bomb’s yield would only come out to 29,746,666,666.7 joules. That’s 7.11 tons of TNT, or Building Level. And when you factor in Tex’s distance from the explosion, her durability would be a whopping 0.002 tons of TNT, which is Wall Level. It doesn’t help that despite being hit by the explosion, her ship was still completely intact afterward with zero damage. 

But what about Andy’s Season 4 bio where he’s described as ”five megatons, but dieting”? Wouldn’t that add consistency to the Reds and Blues surviving a 10 megaton bomb?

This is clearly just a joke. Even if we take it at face value, it’s describing his weight, not his actual yield. And it doesn’t help that characters in the series have been consistently harmed by far less. The heroes and villains are even shown needing to escape a nuclear explosion in season 13, with Carolina risking her life to shield the Reds and Blues because they will die otherwise! 

You could chalk this up to inconsistency, but even then there’s a feature in Red vs Blue’s armor from later seasons that muddy the waters. The season 8 episode “Snooze Button” introduces the concept of Recovery Mode, where a soldier’s armor is rendered immobile after they’re mortally wounded or incapacitated. This is meant to keep them in stasis until a Recovery agent extracts them or the user regains consciousness. We see earlier in the series that this will activate if someone is shot in the head, like with Sarge in season 1, or the stomach like Donut in season 7.

Considering Tucker woke up from unconsciousness after being hit by the megaton bomb and the revelations about reassigned locations and simulation scenarios, this implies the Reds and Blues survived the explosion, but were knocked out long enough to be extracted and moved to their new bases.

In short, the feat’s most likely an outlier, and even if we did buy it, it would only be a high end durability feat.

Demo Man vs the MAC round’s kinetic energy

In Season 9, Episode 15 “The Sarcophagus,” an Insurrectionist commander called the Demo Man is hit by a MAC round sent from orbit, blowing up the skyscraper they were standing on. While the explosion itself only gets to under one ton of TNT, taking into account the speed of the MAC round and the fact he was hit head-on, this would require Demo Man to be withstanding an energy worth 2.84 kilotons of TNT. 

This is undeniably one of the strongest feats in the show, second only behind the megaton bomb. But whether or not you can reliably scale it is another matter entirely.

The arguments supporting it are rather straightforward. Demo Man survived this explosion head-on, Carolina and the Meta could both fight against him, so it’s an easy scaling chain. Even taking into account that the explosion cost him an arm, that wouldn’t affect his durability so much that downscaling would be out of the question.

Though much like the megaton bomb feat, there’s nothing else in the series to back up the cast possessing this level of power or durability. The best they can get otherwise ranges from Wall to Building Level, with the latter coming from Demo Man surviving the MAC’s explosion. This puts the MAC’s KE in the same vein as the megaton bomb where you could make arguments for the cast scaling, but it’s so far beyond the rest of the series’ feats that it’s more likely an outlier. 


Verdict



Stats

When comparing their stats, this is a rather interesting debate. In terms of direct strength feats, Pyrrha’s done things like breaking through trees with shield bashes and using her Polarity for things like slamming Jaune into a wall hard enough to crack it or lifting clock gears. Carolina’s done things like sending armored soldiers flying through the air with her strikes, throwing a robot high into the air, cracking a metal floor, throwing a metal door through a train, and shattering a concrete street. Speed-wise, we’ve got Pyrrha’s laser dodging vs Carolina dodging bullets and shotgun blasts, the latter of which would be Mach 1.31.

That’s a pretty clear gap in speed, and durability would be a similar case. Pyrrha survived an elbow strike at point-blank that created a shockwave and destroyed part of a building. Carolina does have a similar kind of feat where she survives this explosion from a distance, which created a shockwave anywhere from the kiloton - megaton range… but she wasn’t at the epicenter of the explosion, there’s no way to scale her to the full yield, and the explosion itself has a smaller size and thus a way smaller yield.

And when we use scaling, things become way more one-sided.

Starting with Carolina, she can easily be scaled to the other Freelancers. This would include Tex throwing a giant metal crate, which would require over 6 megajoules, outrunning a rocket at subsonic speeds, and surviving Andy the Bomb’s explosion at 0.002 tons of TNT; or the Meta embedding Doc into a wall with one punch for 434 kilojoules. And scaling to her enemies, you could easily get Carolina to 0.944 tons of TNT from Demo Man surviving a MAC round exploding on top of him and upwards of Mach 1.46 from Felix dodging two shots from a pistol at close range.

However, Pyrrha’s scaling just completely blows this out of the water. She can scale to Team RWBY working together to defeat a Nevermore that previously smashed through a bridge, which would require 4.27 tons of TNT. Or you could scale her to Mercury Black’s feats of blocking a sword swing that destroyed part of an arena and dodging lightning, which would get her to 9.46 tons of TNT and Mach 129.7, respectively. And if you want to go all the way, you could scale her to 42.1% the speed of light from Adam blocking a beam from a spider droid. All in all, we’d have Large Building and Massively Hypersonic - Relativistic Pyrrha vs Building and Supersonic Carolina.

What about Epsilon’s AI fragments letting their user experience 10 - 1000 years in seconds? Wouldn’t that give Carolina the edge in stats since they’ve been calculated at Relativistic - FTL speeds?

On the surface, this might sound believable, but when you dig a bit deeper, it becomes harder to fully buy into. 

The speed feats are from Epsilon’s fragments slowing Tucker’s processing speed and assuming he could move 1 meter in this timeframe. This would give Carolina a speed advantage in theory, but it requires a power that Epsilon has never shown while he was with Carolina. 

He’s only ever used this time-dilated perception on himself to develop strategies for her, and while he states “Real world seconds are like minutes and real world minutes are like centuries,” that kind of speed would only amount to 70% the speed of light, a 1.66x difference compared to Pyrrha’s best speed scaling. Even if we gave him full scaling to the “1000 years in seconds,” that would be completely useless if he can’t give Carolina a way of overcoming the difference in AP. Considering the highest AP scaling (at least by their series’ usual metrics) would be a 10x gap in Pyrrha’s favor, and Pyrrha’s best speed scaling would be 251,664.55x faster than Carolina’s own scaling, there is no chance Carolina could pull that off!

But things change if we give Carolina scaling to the kinetic energy of that MAC round Demo Man survived. Even taking downscaling into account, she’d still be somewhere below 2.84 kilotons, which is 300 times stronger than the best feat Pyrrha scales to.

Pyrrha takes stats by most ends, but with the highest scaling for both, Pyrrha is faster and Carolina is stronger.

Tertiaries

In terms of experience, Carolina clearly held the advantage here. While both are experts in their fields and had multiple years of experience in them, Carolina takes it given her experience in the military, Project Freelancer, and the Great War. 

In comparison, Pyrrha had around like 4-5 years as a prodigy huntress before her death, but that's really what she was, a prodigy. Granted a pretty good one that was at the top of her class and won four tourneys in a row. But in comparison to someone who has been fighting for a long time and also remained #1 or 2 on the leaderboards, Pyrrha comes up short.

In terms of intelligence and skill, neither held one distinct advantage over the other in those categories given both have pretty tactical minds on the battlefield. Granted, Pyrrha does seem to be a bit more levelheaded in combat compared to Carolina, who can be a bit more impulsive when it comes to making decisions in the heat of battle. But given she’s just as skilled of a fighter regardless, it hardly matters all that much, so tertiaries go to Carolina.

Arsenal


Like experience, Carolina clearly has the edge here.

Miló’s shapeshifting gives Pyrrha multiple ways to approach Carolina at close and long range, and while it lacks any special properties, Akoúo provides some solid defenses with its size. However, both of them come up short compared to the sheer scope of Carolina’s weaponry.

Carolina’s got much stronger defenses thanks to her full body armor, and a wider variety of ranged options at her disposal. Pistols, rifles, grenades, and even the Gravity Hammer (technically) would heavily outnumber Pyrrha’s weapons. Not to mention she has multiple ways of keeping Pyrrha on her toes. The paralyzing paint would weigh down Pyrrha’s armor if not immobilize her completely, and the teleportation grenades could turn the environment against her or even teleport Pyrrha out of the battlefield! And it’s not like Pyrrha’s reaction speed would let her escape an explosion this big.

The Humbler stun baton would be surprisingly useful here, as this interaction from Ren’s fight with Nolan shows that aura can’t protect from those kinds of weapons. While it didn’t take Ren out of the fight permanently, it still lasted nearly 40 seconds from when he hit the ground to when we see him back on his feet, and it’s unlikely Pyrrha would be given that much time to recover in a one-on-one fight. Especially with the possibility of Carolina dual-wielding stun batons!

The grapple gun and jetpack might not give Carolina much of a physical edge, but they do allow for better mobility. However, nothing else in Carolina’s arsenal is as versatile in its uses as Epsilon. With him on board, Carolina’s going to be getting multiple strategies on the fly to counter Pyrrha, and Epsilon’s scans and analyses would only make it harder for Pyrrha to take Carolina on solo.


Powers

We were split on who should take this category, so we’re separating this into both sides’ arguments.

Pyrrha’s Arguments

Looking over their powers, this is a case of quality vs quantity. Carolina easily takes the latter with her armor enhancements, but Pyrrha’s own powers effectively hard counter anything Carolina could try to pull off.

With her Aura, Pyrrha effectively has a full body shield around her that protects her from mortal wounds and gives her a way of healing herself. This has the benefit of being au naturale, meaning she wouldn’t have to consciously devote her power source to it like Carolina’s armor enhancements. And while Pyrrha has never shown the ability to do this on her own, imbuing her weapons with energy would give her a type of ranged attack Carolina and Epsilon couldn’t predict.

But the biggest thing that gives Pyrrha the advantage is Polarity. It gives her the power to control metal, and against an opponent who’s covered head to toe in metal armor, that would essentially be Carolina’s kryptonite. You could try and argue that Carolina’s Spartan armor being titanium would prevent a magnetism based power from working, but considering it affected soda cans, which are also made of a non-magnetic metal (aluminum), it would likely apply here as well.

Does this mean Pyrrha could just pick up Carolina and telekinetically crush her into a ball? Not necessarily. 

As stated above, Pyrrha’s uses of Polarity are often done in more subtle ways, like redirecting weapons or causing attacks to miss her. And if we combine that with the speed advantage she’d have from scaling to characters like Mercury, Emerald, and potentially Adam? That would make it really hard for Carolina to land any hits on her. Even with Carolina’s possible AP advantage, her weapons would have no way of reliably tagging someone whose reaction speeds are potentially over 251,000x faster, especially when Pyrrha’s magnetism can yoink her weapons out of her hand or embed her in a wall like that one time with Jaune.

While Carolina’s armor enhancements sound like they’d be useful here, even those don’t really help that much. The Speed Boost sounds like it could be useful on paper, but it’s only applicable in short bursts and there’s nothing implying it would boost Carolina to the point of matching even Pyrrha’s MHS scaling. The EMP is useless against Pyrrha, and we already went over how the Healing Unit is outdone by Aura.

Bioscan could be useful in identifying potential weaknesses, but Carolina would need to break through Pyrrha’s Aura first to capitalize on them. The Adaptive Camouflage could help with that since Pyrrha’s never fought those kinds of opponents, but her Aura would likely still hold out against any potential attacks. And the Bubble Shield strangely enough could be Carolina’s biggest strength and biggest weakness. Pyrrha has never shown the ability to break through something that could withstand nuclear explosions, and there aren’t any feats to suggest she’d scale to that level of power. Combine that with its enormous size, and the Bubble Shield would actually trump Pyrrha’s Aura in terms of defenses. So what’s the problem? 

The Bubble Shield might give Carolina a seemingly unstoppable defense, but it has one major weakness: she can’t attack while it’s active. Barring the unlikely chance she performs a strategy she’s never used, she’ll be a sitting duck until she either turns it off or runs out of power. That’s not even getting into the fact that Pyrrha’s Polarity might still be able to affect her inside the shield. And if Pyrrha lets her emotions get the better of her, she could potentially just ragdoll Carolina inside the shield if she sees nothing else is working.

Carolina’s Arguments

When comparing powers, Pyrrha’s Polarity is nothing to scoff at, especially when it comes to a fight like this, where she can use her powers to disarm some of Carolina’s weaponry. But Pyrrha’s powers unfortunately don’t stack up in terms of quantity and variety.

Carolina can speed herself up, which can make landing a hit on her a challenge for Pyrrha. Unless Pyrrha has a way to keep up or react to Carolina on time, Carolina could literally run circles around her. Another useful ability that Pyrrha doesn’t have much of an answer to is Carolina’s Adaptive Camouflage. Pyrrha has little experience against foes that can turn invisible or blend into their surroundings, meaning it would be tough for her to get a read on Carolina if she can’t see her. There’s also nothing Pyrrha had up her sleeve that could reasonably work around the Bubble Shield, especially since it protected Carolina against a nuclear explosion, something Pyrrha doesn’t have an answer to with that amount of potency.

Granted, the EMP had little use given Pyrrha doesn’t really rely that much on technology, and both can heal using their Aura and Healing Unit respectively, but Carolina had other abilities to pick up the slack. Such as the Bioscan, which could help Carolina identify Pyrrha’s weaknesses and potentially help in figuring out how much Aura Pyrrha has left. This goes into another topic when comparing their abilities: could Pyrrha’s Aura last long enough against an opponent like Carolina?

While Aura is useful in healing wounds, boosting strength, and providing use for one’s Semblance, it is not infinite. If Pyrrha takes too many massive blows or continuous use of Polarity, her Aura will inevitably run out of juice, which means she’ll have no other reliable means of protection and she can’t use her Semblance. Carolina doesn’t have to worry about such a limitation when it comes to her abilities, meaning she wins this category thanks to quantity and longevity.

Conclusion

All things considered, this fight is relatively straightforward. Despite Carolina’s debatable strength advantage, greater experience, and weaponry, she couldn’t stack up to Pyrrha’s enormous speed advantage, better defenses, and the magnetic control offered by Polarity.

In the end, Pyrrha will be the one pulling a win.

The winner is Pyrrha Nikos.

Summary

Pyrrha




“Do you believe in Destiny?”


Advantages:
  • Stronger without Carolina’s high end scaling
  • Better durability
  • Faster
  • Polarity gave her a slight edge in creativity
  • Polarity combined with her speed advantage would let her disarm Carolina and counter or nullify her armor enhancements


Disadvantages:
  • Is more limited when it comes to arsenal and abilities
  • Less experienced
  • Her best scaling comes from early in the series



Advantages:
  • Stronger with high end scaling…
  • Much more variety in equipment and abilities…
  • Way more direct feats
  • Had support thanks to Epsilon
  • Way more experienced


Disadvantages:
  • …But far weaker without it
  • …But Polarity would let Pyrrha disarm her and counter her abilities
  • Her powers aren’t quite as creative as Polarity
  • Covered in metal armor, leaving her vulnerable to Polarity
  • Can be a bit impulsive in the heat of the fight
  • Slower
  • Her best scaling comes from an outlier that got retconned



Tally

Pyrrha (4)- Br3ndan5, SeniorNate, DerekPrime, MC Punk
Carolina (3) - Riley, Cyre, Cryotechnics






Credits

These Yang and Weiss respect threads for some of the clips

Kaiser, Kuma, and VS Battles Wiki for the calcs

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ragna the Bloodedge vs Velvet Crowe (Blazblue vs Tales of Berseria)

Image
(Br3ndan5) (Scarat) (NathanTheManTheMHFan) Ragna the Bloodedge , the Grim Reaper from Blazblue ! Velvet Crowe , the Lord of Calamity from Tales of Berseria ! Vengeance can drive one to do many things and commit to any extreme to satisfy their grudge. And nobody knows it better than these two. With the loss of their arm and the mysterious disappearance of their siblings, these two have ventured the world on a quest for vengeance against the one man that ruined their lives. But what happens when these two harbingers of destruction cross paths? Will the Grim Reaper claim another victim, or will the Lord of Calamity devour yet another monster? Let’s find out as we dive deep into both series to determine who would win a DEATH BATTLE! Before we begin Given Blazblue’s status as a multimedia franchise with multiple canon games, manga, and novels, for the sake of making things fair, we’ll also be including any feats or abilities found in the spin-offs and adaptations for Tales of Berseria. This...
Read more

Power Girl vs Hyperion (DC vs Marvel)

Image
(Br3ndan5) (Studio8558) (Scarat) (Morkez) (BangJang) Power Girl , the last daughter of the Multiverse! Hyperion , the sole survivor of the Squadron Supreme! Forced into mainstream continuity from elsewhere in the vast multiverse, these two mighty heroes have made themselves at home in this new universe. And like any superhero these days, they have to deal with supervillains, complicated relationships, and most importantly: continuity reboots! If you think reading through them is confusing, try having everything you know hard reset by the higher-ups! And yet these two persevere, rising above their survivor’s guilt to defend the innocent. But even then, no world exists where both will walk away from a DEATH BATTLE! Before we begin The following analyses are going to focus on specific iterations of Power Girl and Hyperion. For Power Girl, she’ll be given feats and abilities from the Pre-Crisis, Post Crisis, and Post DC Rebirth eras. While the New 52 has its own Power Girl, she won’t be co...
Read more

Yuki Terumi vs Michael Roa Valdamjong (Blazblue vs Tsukihime)

Image
Yuki Terumi , the Black Susano’o from Blazblue ! Michael Roa Valdamjong , Tsukihime ’s Serpent of Akasha! Ouroboros, the depiction of a serpent devouring its own tail. As a symbol this represents the eternal cycle of death and rebirth, or creation and destruction. And it’s an appropriate pick for these two serpent themed villains. Unable to die and constantly reviving, these two sadistic bastards have endured by living on through proxies and hosts, manipulating events from the shadows to achieve their depraved goals. But when they cross paths, which one will have their cycle broken? Let’s find out as we decide who will win a DEATH BATTLE! Before we begin For this blog, we’ll be analyzing the main canon for both Blazblue and the original Tsukihime continuity (i.e the games, manga, and visual novels), as well as the non canon anime Blazblue: Alter Memory . Stuff from the Tsukihime remake continuity will not be included . Background Terumi “This whole world is nothing but lies! LIES! ...
Read more