A quick one-shot about Penny, because not enough people write about Penny. It's a travesty. As always, constructive criticism always welcome. Without further ado, on to the story. Enjoy.
The Beacon airship landing station was empty as the mechanical girl stepped off the shuttle craft, thanking the pilot as she disembarked along with several students. Penny took a quick glance around the platform before concluding that her friends were not present.
'They must still be in their room,' the android thought to herself as she made her way to the dorms. By now, Penny knew exactly where Team RWBY's room was, so she wasted no time heading straight in that direction. 'I wonder why they asked me to come here. Ruby said it wasn't for sparring practice, so I'm not sure what it could be. If it was simply to hang out they would have met me in Vale, as there's a greater diversity of activities.' She continued to ponder this as she arrived at her destination. Penny rapped her knuckle against the sturdy wooden door several times. After a few moment of waiting however, she still hadn't received a response.
"That's strange," she said to herself as she turned to the door across the hall. "Maybe Team JNPR knows where they are." Penny brought her hand up to knock, but before she could she heard the unmistakeable voice of Yang from the room behind her.
"Oh, just get in here already!" The cheery voice was slightly muffled by the door, but still came through very clearly due to the girl's indoor voice being roughly equivalent to a jet engine. Still perplexed, Penny opened the door to Team RWBY's dorm room only to be assaulted by party poppers.
"SURPRISE!" A loud cry met Penny's ears, but did nothing to alleviate her confusion. She simply stood still, blinking as four sets of eyes gazed at her expectantly. After a few moments without a reaction, Ruby tugged her arm.
"Well, come on in!" The smaller girl pulled her into the room, which the android took a moment to examine. The entirety of Team RWBY was present, all still with their gazes fixed on the newcomer. Several multicoloured streamers were hung up on the walls, and the floor was now covered in confetti from the party poppers that the group had welcomed her with.
"Ruby, I don't understand," Penny stated. "What's going on?" The short brunette gave her a wide smile.
"Happy birthday," the red-clad girl said simply. "Hope you like it. None of us really knew what we should do, so we just decided on a small party here and ask what you wanted to do with the rest of the day." Penny didn't respond for a moment.
"This is for me?" Ruby nodded, causing Penny to shake her head slightly. "You really didn't have to..."
"Of course we did!" Yang cut in, hopping off her bunk to clap the girl on the shoulder. "You can't just expect us to NOT celebrate the day you were... uh, brought into this world!" Yang quickly corrected herself. "So seeing as we didn't really bother with refreshments for obvious reasons, why don't we get straight to the good part?" Penny raised an eyebrow expectantly. "Presents!"
"Oh, no no no, you really shouldn't have..." Penny sputtered weakly before Weiss of all people cut her off.
"But we did, so you're just going to have to deal with it." The android looked at the other occupants of the room, but no one seemed willing to allow her to argue. Ruby clapped her hands together and glanced at her team.
"So, who wants to go first?" Her sister immediately volunteered and snatched a yellow envelope off of her bed. Holding it out to the mechanical maiden, she scratched the back of her head with her free hand.
"I'm not sure what kind of music you're into, but it should still be fun," the blonde stated as Penny carefully opened the envelope. Inside was a pair of tickets to something.
"Achieve... Men? Yang what is this?" Said girl's jaw dropped at the question.
"Are you saying you've never heard of the Achieve Men?!" she cried. "Oh my Dust, you're gonna love 'em! They're a band, and those are two tickets for you and me to go to their next concert, which is going to be in Vale." Penny's eyes lit up.
"It's 'you and I', actually," Weiss muttered under her breath, going ignored by all but one of the other occupants of the room.
"Actually, I think 'you and me' is correct in that instance," Blake murmured to the heiress. Weiss looked at her for a moment before shrugging.
"That sounds sen-SATIONAL! I've never been to a concert before!" The android seemed to have rebounded and now looked rather excited. Yang grinned as Blake merely rolled her eyed and reached over for her own gift.
"I'm not exactly used to getting gifts for other people, so it's not as interesting as everyone else's presents, but here." The faunus tossed her a sturdy-looking, medium-sized rucksack. "I noticed you never carry a bag so maybe you don't even need it, but you can use it to carry everyone else's gifts home. Sorry it's so boring." Penny immediately shook her head as she accepted the gift.
"Blake, it makes me very happy that you cared enough to acknowledge my date of manufacture at all, much less got me a gift. Thank you very much." Blake was momentarily surprised at the android's heartfelt thanks, but shook her head and smiled after a moment.
"Happy birthday," she stated simply. Weiss held out her gift next, a small box in her hand. Penny placed the tickets in the bag and set it on the floor before accepting the box curiously.
"I kept it as simple as possible since I'm not sure how big a fan you are of jewelry, but the pendant I modelled after one of your swords." Weiss explained as Penny opened the box, revealing a simple silver necklace. The pendant was indeed a stylized circular icon resembling one of her blades, hung from a thin silver chain. The design was very basic, but the recipient didn't care.
"Weiss, it's very beautiful," the mechanical girl marvelled. "I hope it wasn't too expensive." The shorter girl raised an eyebrow.
"You do remember that I'm the heiress to one of the largest companies on Remnant, right? It's not that big of a deal. Besides," she gestured over at her team leader, "she followed me to make sure I didn't go overboard."
"Would you mind helping me put it on?" Weiss blinked at the request, but shrugged and moved behind the android to attach the clasp. Penny scurried over to the bathroom to check the necklace in the mirror. "It looks wonderful! Thank you very much!" The heiress tried her best to hide a satisfied smile.
"It was nothing." Now, with everyone else' gifts out of the way, it was Ruby's turn. The young huntress in training looked nervous as she approached, holding in her hands what appeared to be a medium-sized picture frame. Yang smacked her roughly on the back, causing her to almost drop the frame.
"Come on sis, you've been working on it for weeks, you can't jam out now," the hearty blonde encouraged, prompting her sister to scurry forward and thrust the frame into Penny's hands without a word. The android blinked at her odd behaviour, but returned her gaze to the frame in her hands. Flipping it over, she found that in the frame was not a photo as she'd expected, but a drawing.
It was a hand-drawn group portrait of Team RWBY and Team JNPR all gazing towards the viewer, along with Penny at the front and centre, mouth wide in a massive smile. Flanking her were Ruby and Nora with their arms over her shoulders, also grinning widely. On Nora's side of the picture stood Team JNPR, while the other half of the picture was occupied by Team RWBY. Jaune, on the far left, had a goofy smile on his face and looked to be scratching the back of his head. Pyrrha stood next to him, one arm folded in front of her as she gave the viewer a small wave. Ren was obviously next to Nora, arms tucked into his sleeves in front of him and a faint smile on his face.
On the side next to Ruby, Weiss had a hand on her hip and was turned slightly to the side, Ruby's artistic hand having perfectly captured her usual feigned indifference. However, her softer than usual eyes and small grin showed she was indeed happy. Yang was resting her arm on Blake's shoulder and leaning on her, a massive smile accompanied by a wink. Blake's arms were crossed and she appeared to be in the process of rolling her eyes at her partner, but her mouth was frozen into a bemused smirk.
'She captured everyone's personalities in perfect detail,' Penny though to herself as she gazed at the portrait. 'She's very talented. I wonder if she's ever taken art classes?' The android continued to stare at the piece of art in her hands before she heard Ruby clear her throat.
"So... what do you think?" she asked, somewhat timidly. "I know there's probably a lot of stuff I could have added, like colour, and a background, but I ran out of time, and I kept asking myself 'is it good enough?', and a necklace or a concert is probably so much cooler, an-" Ruby's rambling was cut off by Penny setting the frame down on her bed and grabbing the girl off the ground in a bone-crushing bear hug.
"Ruby, I love it so much," Penny stated simply. "It looks wonderful. I can't wait to put it up in my room." She quickly released the struggling girl and placed the rest of the items she had received into her new bag as Yang stretched, popping her vertebra in the process and sighing.
"So, where to now? We have a whole day left ahead of us."
After some slight squabbling between the members of Team RWBY, Penny had suggested just walking around town, and the five girls had simply wandered about for the rest of the day. Several of their stops had included an arcade, a Dust shop, and a mall for the biological beings in the group to get food, but mostly they were all content to just enjoy each others' presence and chat.
Eventually however, the day had to come to an end. After bidding Team RWBY farewell, Penny made her way back to her father's house. Once she was inside, her father looked up from the papers on his desk and turned to her.
"So, did you have fun today?" he asked as she removed her backpack.
"Yes father, I had a wonderful time," she replied happily. "My friends were so nice. We spent the day in Vale together." He nodded once before glancing at the rucksack she was in the process of rummaging through.
"What's in there?" he asked. Penny smiled at the question.
"Gifts from my friends," she replied. "Apparently they remembered my manufacture date and threw me a small birthday party." He chuckled lightly.
"A birthday party. Humorous." He watched as she pulled the picture frame out of the bag and handed it to him.
"Ruby drew this for me. The necklace here is from Weiss, the bag is from Blake, and this is from Yang." As she handed over the ticket, she felt herself tense momentarily in anticipation. "Will I be allowed to go, father?" His eyes narrowed as he read the ticket.
"Penny, you know you're not supposed to go to places where you might draw attention to yourself." The ginger-haired girl hung her head.
"Yes father. I understand," she mumbled, slumping her shoulders slightly.
"Though," he stated after a few moments, "it would also be very rude to turn down your friend's invitation when she gave you this ticket for your birthday." Penny perked up slightly, and her father gave her a stern look. "However, you must promise to be on your best behaviour and try not to cause a scene like you did with that Ruby girl. Remember, we're supposed to be ambassadors for Atlas. Also, and I assume it goes without saying, don't let General Ironwood find out. He's still upset about the incident at the docks." Penny's smile beamed, and she wrapped the man in a hug.
"Thank you so much father. Don't worry, I'll be on my best behaviour," she promised, gripping him tightly.
"You seem to have made some wonderful friends," he said simply, his gaze returning to the portrait laying on his desk. "Be sure to keep them close. Friends and family are the most important thing in the world." Penny hummed in agreement.
'I know father. I know'