Some of the best things I have seen in literature are the themes of hope and friendship.
How friends banding together can do anything like bringing down Voldemort, wandering the wastes to destroy the sinister Institute, or restoring peace to Middle Earth with your stalwart companion at your side.
How hope endures, stronger than fear or hate, leaving behind the strength to overcome.
This weekend's episode hurt. Penny was close to my heart, one of my absolute favorite characters. To see her like that... But then again, there's the issue of hope. Penny can't be decommissioned forever. It's possible they can bring her back. I really hope so. If not, then I'll take solace in the fact that Ruby has good friends who will help her through it. But this is what this story is about. Hope. A little positivity despite the uber dark stuff thats been going on, a little emergency fanfic considering recent events, if you will.
Thank you Monty.
Enjoy, everyone.
For the thousandth time, Ruby stared out the window, watching the people below skitter back and forth like ants, and construction vehicles trundle here and there like fat yellow beetles. Surprisingly, the world was back to the way it was even so short of a time after such a devastating Grimm attack, building, fixing, and growing. Ruby shuddered, remembering that night so long ago, and yet so close; the Grimm flooding through the streets like a dark tide, the rogue hunters that almost brought Vale to its knees…
It was all so scary though, to think of what would have happened if Ruby hadn't called in her rocket locker at long last, pinning that Mercury to the ground and removing one more threat from the neverending deluge of creepy-crawlies. Yes, Ruby had her fair share of fights under her belt, but this? This was different, there weren't any rules or disapproving professors to keep things under check. That fight had left her piecing poor little Crescent Rose together even to this day.
Huh, maybe Penny could help…
Ruby pulled out her Scroll and popped it open, scrolling down the contacts list.
"Hmmm… Jaune… Nora… Penny…"
She gasped and dropped the Scroll.
Penny…
Her friend had been first to fall in Cinder's scheme, blown to bits by Pyrrha's Semblance. It wasn't her fault, she didn't know what had really happened, none of them really knew, but finding out Pyrrha had been manipulated by Ruby's "friend," the both of them were relieved, knowing that deep down, they were not to blame. Ruby had hugged her older friend, making amends and comforting each other. Every time she passed by, saw that strange empty look Pyrrha had, she just wanted to run up and hold her so bad, to tell her everything was all right,
But what Ruby really wanted was Penny.
To run up and hug her (or rather, get tackled in a bone crushing hug), reassuring her that everything was safe now, and that nothing would ever ever ever hurt her again.
She had run up to Ozpin's office after the battle, pleading, crying to him and Ironwood and Professor Goodwitch and Uncle Qrow to fix her friend, to put everything back to the way it was.
But no, they said, there was nothing left to fix, not after the stadium had plowed into the ground and erupted into a storm of fire.
Just like that, Penny had come, and just like that, Penny had gone.
There wouldn't be anyone to pick up the call if she pressed "Penny."
The Scroll slipped from her fingers as the tears slipped from her eyes, blurring the shapes of the people down below into little muddy smudges.
She didn't hear the door open behind her, nor did she hear Yang, Blake, and Weiss make their way slowly in; it wasn't until Yang gently laid a hand on her shoulder and plopped Zwei onto her lap that she looked up and over at her team, trying her hardest to smile through the tears. Her sister leaned forwards to brush the tears off her cheek, and wrapped a supportive arm around her, pulling her close. The rest of the team followed suit, surrounding Ruby and holding her close as well. Nobody spoke. They didn't need to.
We're here for you.
They had all lost people in that fight. Weiss had watched Neptune go down under a wave of Grimm, firing blindly as the darkness enveloped him, an unwavering look of determination fixed on his face until the very end. Blake was helping to evacuate the stadium along with Team CFVY, who had all stayed behind to save as many as they could as the coliseum fell from the sky. Yang had fought alongside Doctor Oobleck to keep Grimm away from the fleeing civilians, watching helplessly as a squad of White Fang flew out from an alleyway, raising arms against him and gunning him down.
None of that hit them as hard as Penny's loss had hit Ruby.
They were all older, they knew better how to deal with things. It never was an easy road, but still, they had, for the most part, learned to move forward.
Ruby, thought? Most of the second years, including themselves, were all over age. But Ruby?
For Dust's sake, Ruby was still sixteen.
She wasn't as strong as everyone else, physically or mentally. And despite being team leader, she was still essentially the baby of the team.
And a team was only as strongest as its weakest link.
The team huddled together, silently, trying to tell Ruby they were there, that things were looking up.
Yang spoke up first. "Hey, Sis… "
"Y-yeah?" Ruby sniffled, trying to pull herself together.
"Remember how Ren said he knew what was wrong with Crescent Rose? How he could try and fix it?"
"Yeah…"
"He figured it out."
Ruby smiled wider, a bigger, more genuine one, not another canned smile so typical of her these last few weeks. It grew even more when she was told that Ren had found a way to make her beloved scythe work way more efficiently.
"So Ruby," asked Weiss, "What do you say? I'm sure you miss twirling your scythe about."
Ruby sniffled again, wiping her eyes dry as she smiled again at her friends. "Yeah… of course… and guys?"
"Yes?"
"Thanks. Thanks for being here for me."
The team made their way across the hall to team JNPR's room, with Zwei tagging along at their heels. Nora opened the door to them with her usual customary grin, inviting them in. It was just her and Ren, she explained, Jaune and Pyrrha were on their customary spot on the roof.
"But where's Ren?" Ruby looked around the room; usually Ren was the one to open the door.
"Oh, Ren? Sleepyhead's over there," she quipped, gesturing towards Ren's desk, where the junior Hunter was sprawled face down, his normally immaculate workspace dotted with scraps of metal, empty mugs, and random assortments of junk. "I'll wake him up." Nora darted over to her own desk, grabbed a mug of tea from a hot plate, and set it down on Ren's desk, on the rapidly expanding puddle of drool next to his face. He stirred for a second, lifted his head long enough to grab the mug and drain its contents in an epic gulp, then set his head back down and snored away.
Nora sighed in frustration, stomping over to Ren and jabbing him in the sides, yelling "TASER!" That was enough to prompt him to launch out of his seat with a yelp. He turned to Nora with a doleful frown, massaging his sides. "Nora," he said tiredly, "there has to be a better way to wake m-" He stopped, suddenly noticing the newcomers at the door. His eyes flew open as he darted back to his desk, shoving the detritus off of his desk and pushing it under his bed, and throwing a pillowcase over an oddly shaped object on his desk, before making his way back to Nora's side with a pained grimace.
"As you can see here," Nora began, Mr. Working Hard has been going for quite a long while… and now he's gone to Mr. Hardly Working. How lame is that?" The smile slowly fell from Nora's face as she looked over to Ruby. "Ruby… he knows how much that scythe means to you, he's literally been killing himself trying to fix it for you. I've been telling him to take it easy, especially after the coliseum thingy." And indeed, there Ren stood, uncharacteristically pale and thin, his hair greasy and matted, the pink streak as dim as his once vibrant eyes. But still, he managed a warm smile as he limped back to his desk and retrieved a very shiny and cleanly polished Crescent Rose, extending it gingerly to Ruby like a proud parent showing off his child.
Ruby's eyes shone with glee as she gently picked up the weapon. Her friends backed up as Ren nodded to Ruby to try it out. With an eager nod back, Ruby twirled Crescent Rose, watching the oiled steel flash to life in her hands with a whisper, growing into the giant scythe that she adored so much. Happier tears brimmed in her eyes as she twirled it around her in graceful arcs, beaming at Ren and silently thanking him over and over again. Her friends watched the elegant display of metal bringing color and mirth back into Ruby's face, taking solace in the fact that once again, Ruby had a reason to smile.
Folding Crescent Rose back into its compact form and stowing it on her belt, she beamed brightly and hugged Ren tightly, then letting go to draw Nora into one as well, thanking them profusely.
"Thanks Ren. You don't know how much Crescent Rose means to me. And Nora, thanks for taking care of him. It really means a lot."
Nora laughed brightly. "Oh man, you can't believe how hard it is to take care of this doof when he's so focused on stuff, like he even tried to skip class to try to get the s-"
"Nora," Ren cut in, "I'm fine. Really."
"No you don't mister! Your hair is all greasy and icky!" She playfully yanked on his unkempt ponytail, to which he responded with a sigh and resigned smile.
Ruby brought out her scythe again, holding it tight, running her fingers up and down the burnished metal, playing across the ridges and sleek lines and bumps and-
Wait. Bumps?
She held out her weapon and scrutinized it, noticing something… odd…
Where there hadn't been before, there were about a dozen very small holes drilled in roughly a circular grid pattern.
"Hey Ren?"
"Yes?"
"What's this?"
She handed Crescent Rose to him and pointed out the anomaly. He squinted at it, a frown furrowing his brow, then turned his attention at Ruby once more, handing her back the scythe.
"Ruby… do you remember that night when the coliseum went down?"
Ruby nodded. "Yes?"
"We were looking for survivors in the crash site after the Grimm were cleared out. We… We…" Ren had gone paler, prompting Nora to dash over to her desk and shove a hot mug of tea into his shaking hands. Gently ushering him aside, she mournfully continued in his stead.
"Ren found something in the rubble. It was super broken and all, but I thought we had all we needed. And we took it before the cleanup people arrived."
"Nora? What's going on?" Ruby looked baffled.
Nora sighed, a shudder racking her body. Wrapping her arms around herself, she motioned Ruby farther into the room with a nod of her head. Reaching Ren's desk, she reached for the object Ren had covered up with the pillow case, then stopped herself.
"Ruby… we found… her… We found your friend…" Nora's eyes were wide with sorrow as he pointed towards the bundle on the desk.
Ruby stepped forward, and gently drew the pillowcase back, revealing exposed circuitry and a shock of dusty ginger hair.
Crescent Rose slipped from Ruby's arms and clattered to the ground.
She gasped and stumbled backwards, tears once again flowing freely. "P-Penny? But why?" She buried her face in her hands and sobbed as Weiss and Yang rushed to her side, followed by Ren and the rest of Team RWBY. They held her as she cried, whispered words of encouragement to her, until Ren spoke up.
"Ruby… She's still alive."
With a gasp Ruby leapt to her feet again. "What?"
"Ruby," Ren continued, his voice barely a whisper. "She's alive."
Emotions flickered on Ruby's face, confusion, hope, fear, anger, each piling on the other like a traffic jam of emotion, pushing her back, forcing her to the ground. "Ren!? That's not funny!"
The other members of team RWBY looked to Ren with condemnation flashing in their eyes. Only Nora remained with a sorrowful expression in her eyes, with no trace of malice.
He sighed and reached down to where Ruby had dropped Crescent Rose, and picked it up. Twisting its compact form around in his hands, he examined the scythe momentarily, fiddling with it, before extending it out to Ruby, who responded by harshly knocking his hand aside, sending the weapon careening to the floor.
"Ren! Don't lie to me like that, it already hurts so much," Ruby whimpered. "You brought her back and you said all that stuff about her, you just can't tease me like that!"
"But he's not teasing."
The voice crackled through the room, distorted with static, so familiar, but yet… so far.
Ruby covered her mouth in absolute shock. It- It was-
"Ruby… He's right."
Ren reached over and picked up Crescent Rose and held it out slowly, like a squire would hand a sword to a knight. Ruby leaned forward, awed, as-
Crescent Rose was speaking!?
Nora bent down next to Ren, gesturing at the strange set of holes on Crescent Rose, with an oddly excited smile on her face.
It's…. a speaker?
Wiping her eyes dry again, Ruby leaned forward cautiously. "H-hello?" The words came hesitantly, unbelievingly.
"Ruby, I'm all right. Don't you worry."
And with that, a panel slid aside on Crescent Rose, the figure of Penny Polendina flashing into being in the air above, with the widest glowing smile Ruby had ever seen, while her teammates looked on with awe.
It was her. It was really her. Ruby reached out, her hand quivering with joy and the crushing essence of bittersweet victory. For here, her friend was back, but merely a shadow, a hologram, not the same Penny that had departed that night at the coliseum.
But alas, it was still Penny.
Ruby had said it once before, it didn't matter what her friend had inside, whether they had been made from nuts and bolts or squishy guts, or in this case, circuitry and light. They weren't any less real either way, and Ruby knew.
She could feel her friend's happiness filling up the room like air into a balloon as Penny turned to face her and flashed off a quick grinning salute.
"Salutations, friend! I missed you so so much!"
I hope Penny's gonna be back. But even if she doesn't, her resolve to make friends and save the world was indomitable. Maybe her dreams won't be completed in her lifetime, but Ruby and gang will move forward with her memory.
This episode was rough, I'm not gonna lie. Take care of yourself, everyone.
And again, Thank You, Monty.