Two Cents

[Restarting. . .]

"So, this is what the General has put all his hopes and dreams into... a synthetic killing machine disguised as an innocent little girl..." It was like watching herself from the outside, or from within a dream: though her vision was oddly dark, Penny could see someone tip her head up by her chin. Her eyes constantly refocused trying to make anything out of the woman's face, yet she had no control over her own body. It was not as though her limbs felt too heavy, they simply... refused to move. To recognize that she even wanted to move.

Her eyes continued to try and focus on the speaker, but to no avail: though her surroundings was clear, the woman in front of her was blurry.

"Such a shame... she does not even know her own purpose. How despicable of them." The mysterious woman let her head drop. A pair of heavy, black bracelets were clear as day, locked on her wrists. She didn't have any other restraints.

[Aura not detected. Secondary power system below 5%. Shutting down.]

[Restarting. . .]

"How's the new leg treatin' you?" Her eyes recorded only a sky made of stone. She was laid down and moving somewhere, but Penny couldn't tell where she was headed, or where she was.

"Yeah, yeah, yuk it up, asshole." Dim white Dust crystals lined the dome of earth, laying down a faint, grungy light. Out of the corner of her eyes, men and women in black with white vests marched around with tools. Their faces were hidden by Grimm masks. White Fang.

"Hey, hey, no need to get so grouchy, gramps. I'm being serious, here." She'd heard that voice before. Somewhere in the visitor's dorms at Beacon? Beacon... her eyes slowly panned to look over herself again: those bracelets were still on her. She wanted to see Ruby and Weiss again. Were they alright, after the fight?

"Wow, you being serious? Might want to get that checked out, kid. Don't be stupid, I've got no reason to care about you, and you've got no reason to care about me. So why don't you just cut the crap, and... huh." Her sight grew more vibrant, and Penny found enough strength to shift her arm towards her pocket. Eerily, she felt no resistance, no heaviness, no fatigue. It simply moved. A warning flashed across her sight: Roman Torchwick identified. A priority two target.

"... Well. That changes things, doesn't it? 'Guess you'd know, then: would it be easier or harder if I just cut the other leg off?" A low, dry laugh came from beside her and suddenly faded. "Now, what do we have here?" Penny had not even noticed that she had withdrawn her Scroll and had brought it to her contacts list. It didn't matter, for Torchwick casually snatched it from her hand. Her arm collapsed limply back onto the cold, hard surface of whatever she was being carted in on.

"A friend of Red's, huh? Isn't that interesting..."

[Aura not detected. Secondary power system below 5%. Shutting down.]

[Restarting. . . Power source detected, charging. . .]

Her sight brightened and head jerked up as a wave of power struck her. Though she still had no conscious control, she had enough strength to look around more actively: a plain, white room. Plain, white lights. She was on a plain, white counter. A cell.

"My, my, the things they have done with my research..." Her head mechanically turned towards the source of the voice without her control. The alerts came strong enough to hurt her head, now, as he stepped forward.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Penny Poledina. My name is Doctor Merlot, and you could consider me your... grandfather..."

A priority one target was her grandfather?

The first rays of the Sun had begun to break through the clouds, when Glynda, Ironwood and Ozpin met on exactly what to be done about the attack on Beacon. Though Ozpin had already come to his decision, he did not feel comfortable making it without first convening with his closest advisor. She was normally the one who provided a viewpoint that even he could admit he sorely lacked: a younger one. Though he would rarely, if ever, mention it, Ozpin often feared that viewing things through the eyes of one who'd lived as long as he could hamper his own decision making.

Glynda growled in frustration at Ironwood, both of whom stood behind him. "Why must your answer to everything be a show of military bravado?! You treat every situation like it's a contest of measuring di—"

"Glynda!" This was not one of those times.

"... Well, he does."

Ozpin sighed and turned his chair to face them. Ten minutes had gone by and the two of them had done nothing but argue with one another: Glynda believing that they needed to wait and not jump into what would undoubtedly be an expected counterattack, Ironwood believing nothing short of eradication of the enemy would suffice for the kidnapping of one of his students and an attack on Beacon's own. Perhaps only through luck, for all the casualties across the campus, there were only three recorded fatalities from the assault. All of them were those who were trying to defect to the White Fang.

He made his decision: "We will be assisting in the assault on Mountain Glenn."

Glynda looked on in disbelief. "Sir, you can't be serious!"

"Patience, Glynda. We will be assisting Ironwood, but, I wish to try this my way, first."

"Ozpin, I refuse to wait even another day when we are all in danger—" Ironwood was cut off as Ozpin angrily rose from his chair. Even leaning heavily on his cane, his presence was enough to cow the general.

"We are not waiting. You are a general, James, so tell me: when you prepare to go to war, which do you send in first? The flag bearers, or the scouts?" The two stared one another down for a moment before Ironwood relented.

"Who do you have in mind?"

Team RWAY was barely getting any sleep at all, that night. It was not for lack of trying, but the events of the battle hung over them like a miasma. Even Yang, who had simply heard of the events secondhand, was choked by the oppressive atmosphere any time she so much as closed her eyes. Having to sleep beneath an unfamiliar ceiling made it all the worse.

Unfamiliar. That was it.

An unfamiliar ceiling, an unfamiliar room, an unfamiliar bed, and an unfamiliar sister. Try as Ruby might, she couldn't hide her the sorrows lurking in her silver eyes from her big sister, but the fact that she did not even try to mention what had happened after she had passed out, even when they were alone, was just plain strange. When she listened closely enough, even as the first rays of the sun began to pour in at an unfamiliar angle, Yang could even faintly hear a sniffle echo in the dead silent room.

The fact that, somehow, the room managed to grow even more still afterwards told Yang that she was not the only one still awake. She hadn't seen Ruby this depressed since she had realized Summer wasn't ever coming back, and sometimes Yang even wondered if the true shock of that had ever sunk in. Yang just... wasn't used to seeing Ruby so much as down for five minutes, let alone genuinely saddened and shocked. She had looked tired. Traumatized. And why wouldn't she, after what she'd seen?

Yang clutched her pillow, eyes briefly flashing red before she turned over to face what she was certain was the source of their sleeping troubles: Adam. Another unfamiliar partner. Sitting hunched over on his bed that he'd dragged over to the corner of the room, Adam did not even look tired, Wilt held tightly in his hand and eyes following even the slightest twitch of movement. Emerald, tired eyes met a lilac quickly growing red once more. Sitting watchful like a sentinel, in truth he might as well had been a shadow cast on all of them. It was different, knowing that his actions had a direct effect on them: that he could simply... murder someone so casually in front of Ruby.

He was unfamiliar in another way, as well: Yang had never seen him acting so... protective. Focused. If she didn't know any better, Yang might've even thought that something was gnawing away at him, too, but, her sympathy was lost after his actions.

She couldn't take it. Yang sat up in her bed, her glare sending an unspoken message to Adam: she'd handle watching the room. And yet, as Adam remained sitting and simply closed his eyes, Yang had the feeling that even then, none of them were going to get much sleep at all.

She was right.

Yang suddenly yelped as the remnants of her already-tattered sleep were destroyed by the alarm. All at once, the room burst into activity truly befitting those important enough to be targeted by assassins: Ruby screamed and threw her comforter at the window to cover it before paradoxically drawing and aiming Crescent Rose at the cloth, Weiss accidentally threw herself face-first on the ground and froze the clock with a glyph, and Adam had sprung up to his feet, Wilt pointed uselessly at the window and Blush aimed at the closed door.

Three seconds passed. Then ten. A tiny snicker made its way out from Yang, and that was all that was needed to have the entire team chuckling and giggling along at their own silliness. That is, until their gazes met, and the memories of the night prior crushed them back into an awkward silence. It stretched on for a few seconds longer as they dusted themselves off and settled back on their beds before Adam suddenly rose and strode to the door.

"I'll take the last shower," He mumbled in some attempt to get the events of the day started before slipping outside. The door shut, leaving the three girls to look to one another. Weiss silently got up and gathered her things for a shower, and then, there were only two. Knowing Yang was watching her closely, Ruby crawled back into bed almost immediately and slipped her blindfold back on to hide her eyes, but it did not let her evade her sister's worries.

"Ruby, are you doing alright, over there?" Yang asked before Ruby could fall back asleep.

A couple seconds passed before her sister answered and, even then, it was only a weak: "Yeah, I'm fine..."

A tiny frown tugged at Yang's lips, but, determined to at least get a smile out of Ruby, she plopped onto her sister's bed and put on a wide grin. "Ah, come on, sis, aren't you excited about today? It's our first mission as Huntresses! Not like you'd let me forget, or anything, from how many times you told me about it." She giggled and laid down next to her sister. "I bet we can still get the first mission briefing document or whatever it's called framed." Yang looked down at Ruby, but her blindfold remained on. So did her frown.

There was no response.

"We could even try to get a mission off the southeast like we planned..." Yang trailed off when even the possibility of saving the day didn't get so much as a twitch out of Ruby. She remembered how sad Ruby was about just how much the White Fang hated humanity, but... Yang had to admit to herself: dealing with people hating you was something she didn't know how to deal with. She just naturally let that stuff flow right off of her, and Ruby just wasn't a 'hateable' person. She had her fair share of bullies for being antisocial and adoring weapons more than people, of course, but, no one detested her. It was just unfathomable!

Right then! Plan A it was!

"Rubes, come on, what happened? You know you can tell me anything, right?" She took the direct route. Ruby slowly raised her blindfold up and, for just a moment, Yang thought she could see the resistance waning in her silver eyes... before they dulled once more, and with a defeated sigh her sister turned away.

"I can't..." Yang resisted the urge to groan as she rolled onto her back. What was she missing, here!

"Well, I can't help ya if you won't tell me, but... whatever it is, Ruby, just remember, I'll always be around for you. No matter what." If it was she thought it was, then maybe Ruby just didn't want to bring her into it? Did she not want to be seen as too weak for being a little screwed up by someone getting killed right in front of them? But she was her big sister! She should've been able to talk to her about anything! Maybe, a part of her mind she despised piped up, Ruby thought that she wouldn't care about something like death. That she was too wild to understand her.

Yang squeezed her eyes shut as if that alone would empty out her thoughts, but, she couldn't deny that it was a possibility. So they needed someone controlled, yet passionate like Ruby who might be able to understand... and someone who at least has experienced this kind of thing before.

She sat up and looked over at the closed bathroom door, where the noise of the shower had just faded. Perfect.

Strategically placed red and white Dust crystals lit up one after the other, lighting the bathroom up a faint pink as heated air rushed across Weiss' hair, drying it in a way that only heiresses—or, in her case, extremely successful gamblers—could. More importantly, a way only they could afford, too. She stretched herself out in the comfortable heat and looked to her Scroll sitting beside the sink. Something suddenly occurred to her: Penny! How could she be so terrible as to not check up on if her friend was doing alright? While her name was not on the casualty or fatality list, that simply did not excuse the lack of a call. Especially, Weiss thought as she recalled their poor team leader just outside, since she knew not all wounds were physical.

Weiss threw a towel around herself and grabbed her Scroll. A mere wave of her hand every so often was all she needed to change the direction of the wind and the heat placed behind it as she dialed Penny's number in. It only rang twice before it was picked up: cordial, Weiss liked that—

"Why hello there, Ice Queen!" Her face fell to one of terror grave enough that she could barely even recognize herself in the mirror.

"Torchwick," Weiss breathed out in shock. She felt like she was punched in the stomach.

"Oh-hokay, you're a little too young to be saying my name like that, Princess." Walking his way down the many halls of the only pristine building those animals could manage in their new base, Roman Torchwick smirked at the disgusted scoff from the other side of the line. His gait was unsteady, cane striking the ground harshly with each step: he was still getting used to that little number those rats did on him, but, he'd have to live with it.

"What do you want?! Why do you have Penny's phone?!" Weiss hissed.

Torchwick let out a dry, spiteful chuckle. "I had one of my little technicians scan the Scroll when she was wandering by and decided to see if the copy I built from it worked... Or I might've just nabbed the thing from her myself while she was unconscious. Fan-cy, by the way! Did you buy this for her, or was this from Atlas?" He commented facetiously.

"What have you done with Penny?" Oh, it was almost adorable how she was trying to hold back her panic. A little interesting as well, he thought, that she was keeping her voice down like that. He wondered if they were anywhere public. Torchwick gave a little nod to Emerald as they crossed paths, one that was only met with the roll of her eyes. He had to admit, she'd managed to get at least a little respect from managing to pilfer his own lighter off of him. A little. That Semblance of hers was a cheap crutch, though.

"What have I done? Way to be presumptuous! I haven't even touched her, honest. All I did was help see her off to her grandfather like the good samaritan I am. Is that really so wrong?"

"Torchwick, you will listen and you will listen well: she has absolutely nothing to do with this or us! Anything you think you know about her is a mistake, so just let her go before you bring all of Beacon down on your head." Torchwick rolled his eyes as he came to a stop at a large push door. Mercury stood guard, watching the crime boss with a cocked eyebrow. He leaned away from his Scroll as Weiss went on and mimicked someone yapping away with his hand.

"You know, I'm beginning to get the feeling that we just aren't connecting, here. If we're just gonna keep talking past each other, I think I'll just cut it off right here. In fact, I think I'll go have a chat with Penny, now. Though, let me tell you, I think she has a few screws loose." Weiss' panicked shout was cut off with the simple press of a button. Torchwick dropped the scroll into his pocket and looked over at Mercury.

The crime boss scoffed. "Women," he grumbled. Mercury nodded sagely.

Weiss barreled through the bathroom door in a panic, clutching her towel to herself and looking for all the world like she'd found another assassin in the shower waiting for her. "They've got Penny!" She shouted before the other two could ask questions.

Yang and Ruby both sprung up on their feet. "Who? The White Fang?" Yang asked.

"No, Torchwick, of all people! He said something about her 'grandfather'; he's probably involved, too. He even knows that she's..." Weiss froze up, remembering that it was more than just a little secret. Even in a situation like this, Weiss wasn't sure if she could just freely say that Penny is—

"A robot?" Yang finished her sentence. Weiss and Ruby stared blankly at her, then at each other.

"B-but, how'd you..."

"Come on, guys, did none of you notice?"

"You only talked to her once!"

"Yeah, and that's all I needed!"

"What if she was just sheltered?"

"Sheltered and under constant military protection while coincidentally never being seen unless she's sneaking out? Uh-huh, right. Robot." Yang crossed her arms with a smug grin. In truth, after Blake got her by being a faunus, she just looked a little closer into how other strange people acted. Really, after she thought even a little on Penny it felt like the worst-kept secret in all of Remnant.

"That's so cool! Does she have laser vision? Grappling hands? Oh! Oh! Can she turn into a jet?!" Ruby bounced on her bed, the events of the previous night swept off into a corner of her mind, for now.

"Wha... but you... no! That doesn't matter right now, what matters is that her grandfather or Torchwick kidnapped her and know she's mechanical!" Weiss shouted.

Ruby furrowed her brow. "But no one's said anything about it... she's not on any of the casualty lists. Why would they try to hide something like that?"

"... If Penny knows too much, they might not want anyone to know the difference between her being gone because she's kidnapped, and her being gone because they had to take... desperate measures to keep information out of the enemy's hands," Weiss spoke quietly, her gaze turned to the ground. It was cruel and awful, but, it sounded exactly like what Atlas could do in this situation. At least, what her father would've done. The room fell quiet at the possibility before Ruby stepped forward and, with a determined smile, declared as if it were the most obvious thing in the world:

"Then we'll just save her before they have to do that!"

"Yeah, duh, but how?" Yang pointed out. "We don't even know where she's hiding."

"We know she has a Scroll, maybe we could track her, somehow?" Ruby suggested.

"First, we need to find out how to track a Scroll. If Atlas and Beacon are refusing to mention Penny's kidnapping, I am afraid the proper authorities won't be of any help. Unfortunately, there have been some... issues... with procuring my own resources, as well, and going through more improper," That is, illegal. "Channels could take too long."

Ruby's smile waned. "Actually, there is someone who probably knows how to do that..."

Adam stepped out of the bathroom of their ruined dorm and adjusted his outfit. He was right: everything was still working fine even after the attack. His eyes scanned across the rest of the room: their beds were nothing but splinters and ash, black scorch marks had torn and marred the entire side of the room where he and Weiss once slept, and new bullet holes no doubt caused by his spare ammunition going off from the flames were scattered all across the room. The scent of red Dust would likely linger no matter what Professor Goodwitch did. Adam sighed: even if she could fix this, he wondered if they would still see the wounds left on their dorm, if only in their minds.

A knock at the door brought Adam out of his thoughts. By the time he'd turned around, Ozpin had already opened the door.

"I'd had a feeling you would be here," He said casually and let himself in. "I need you to perform a task for me." Ozpin shut the door behind him. So, this was where they were, now: not even attempting to hide that he'd become Ozpin's puppet.

"Are you seeking revenge for this attack?"

Ozpin's constant, pleasant smile grew a little more sly. "It seems you've caught me red-handed. However, I do believe I am correct in assuming you want the same, as well. Worry not, Mister Belladonna, I am not requesting you become my soldier, nor am I demanding it. I simply believe our interests, right now, are aligned." When Adam did not object, Ozpin continued: "I've heard from one of your fellow teammates that the 'CCT infiltrator' was returning to a base located in the southeast. There are a multitude of missions that will be located near or around this area. All I need from you is to select Mission #31: a 'Search and Destroy' located in Mountain Glenn."

"Have you narrowed down the location of their base that swiftly? How?"

"You have your sources, and I have mine," Ozpin replied cryptically. "Nonetheless, so long as you follow your instructions, I am sure we will be one step closer to trapping our enemies." He turned and opened the door to leave. "Ah, and before I forget, a rather curious package to Ruby and Yang was redirected to my office from Signal Academy on account of your quarters being out of commission." Ozpin reached down and brought up a simple, if large, brown cylinder with a number of holes at the top. It shuddered.

"I haven't the slightest clue what it is, though. Nor do I know why it smells so strangely. I would believe that it was some sort of animal, but, as pets are not allowed in the dormitories, it surely could not be that," He said facetiously as he handed off the shaking package to a rather confused Adam. "Alas, I may never know. Have a pleasant day, Mister Belladonna, and good luck on your mission in Mountain Glenn." With that, Ozpin left.

Adam looked down at the package and raised an eyebrow. The package became still once more, and Adam suddenly got the strangest feeling that the next couple days were going to be very odd, indeed...