Penny loved the rush of flight. It took her quite some time to replicate the effect with her original Floating Array, but when a new body was built for her, she was quite adamant about the jet boosters.

Keeping pace with Ruby during training was a very welcome bonus.

"Time!" Ruby shouted, the 100 meter dash finished.

"Based on my chronometer, 8.9 seconds for you, 9.2 for me," Penny reported.

"Ugh!" Ruby moaned. While it was impressive to be sure, Harriet's currently held the record at 7.8 seconds, and was happy to remind Ruby of this fairly often.

"I am certain you will surpass Operative Bree soon enough," Penny reassured. "Your speed is far beyond what it was at Beacon, and you've shaved off a full .5 seconds since your arrival in Atlas."

"Yeah, but I still don't know what to make of the 'petals' thing yet," Ruby complained, "Can I supercharge it somehow like if you used more lasers?"

"Unlikely," Penny noted, "based on Aura readouts, your fully activated semblance has the potential to completely redistribute your physical form, possibly even negating any form of drag."

Ruby gasped. "You can scan for Aura distribution? That's so cool!"

"Thank you!" Penny replied with a smile. "The thermal, ultraviolet, and night vision were rather simple to install, but that one apparently took a while."

"You have how many types of vision?!" Ruby exclaimed. "Next you'll tell me your new body has laser eyes."

"Testing never worked out, unfortunately," Penny revealed. "I felt it was superfluous anyway."

"Man, you must have a lot of crazy new upgrades," Ruby noted.

"I... guess so," Penny remarked, somewhat put off.

Ruby, in a remarkable display of social awareness, took note. "What's wrong?"

The gynoid sighed. "I am a machine. An impressive machine, a real person regardless, but still a machine. And sometimes, when I hear people talk about my new features, it feels like they are speaking of me like an object."

"Penny, I'm sorry," Ruby reassured, "that wasn't what I meant."

"I didn't think you did," Penny replied, "But given how much you always talk about how much you love engineering and weapons technology..."

The pause greatly worried the reaper. "What about it?" she asked.

"I am grateful you became my friend despite my synthetic nature, but..." Penny seemed to swallow a breath, were she capable of such a feat. "I worry that you only remained my friend for the novelty of being friends with a robot."

"That's not true at all, Penny!" Ruby argued. "I mean, yeah, I thought it was really cool that I was friends with a robot. And when you talk about all the things you can do, I can't help thinking, 'Wow, Penny's the coolest ever'. But that's just it, 'Penny is the coolest.'

"I am more than my functions," Penny reiterated, worried that Ruby wasn't understanding.

"I know that," Ruby agreed. "But it's more like, 'Nora can bench press 200 pounds without breaking a sweat'. It's a cool thing about you, not your dad. Not that your dad's not cool."

"For a dad," Penny joked.

"Exactly!" Ruby laughed in agreement. "Penny, I became your friend before I knew you were a robot. I only found out you were one because I wanted to be your friend no matter what. And I'll dial back the geek-out factor if it makes you uncomfortable. But, I just wanted you to know I think you're really cool. Fancy robot stuff or no."

"Well," Penny considered, "did I tell you I've also recently tried taking up gardening?"

"No, tell me about that," Ruby requested.

"It's been fascinating," Penny began, "I've had difficulties acquiring the proper materials, given Atlas' natural climate, but I've made good progress. But I've wanted to weigh the pros and cons of certain types of soil..."

Penny went on for quite some time, but Ruby didn't mind. It was nice to see Penny talk about a hobby for once.