CHAPTER 2: RUN AND GUN FOR FUN
Remnant
Kingdom of Vale
October 29th
80 Years After the Great War
Penny had just made several grievous miscalculations that could result in her losing the one person that she knew who could become her first true friend.
The first miscalculation that she had completely overlooked was that while obtaining Jaune's information, it never occurred to her that if he answered his scroll, she would have to explain just how she had obtained his information. Perhaps his memory wasn't as selective, but she didn't want to take a chance at such a risk. If he asked questions, then he might begin to suspect her. That could lead to mistrust and the time they had spent together three days prior would be all for nothing.
The synthetic girl considered her options. She could simply say that she had called the school and asked for his information, but that presented the potential problem of exposing herself too soon. She did have to keep her nature a secret and that meant speaking to as few people as possible.
Her next solution was to simply opt for the truth, in which case Jaune might ask her a bunch of questions as to how she had managed to obtain his contact information. Depending on how she answered, she would be either lying to him or lying to Atlas and neither choice was appealing.
A third path was to simply pass it off as him forgetting that he had given her his information, but then how would she account for the fact that she had his information and he didn't have hers? Plus, he had already seen her when she lied. He might not realize the meaning behind her hiccups, but if he saw enough times, he would begin to realize something.
And she was just getting started.
The second miscalculation that Penny had not accounted for the wait time between their first outing and the next time they would participate in an outing. She was uninformed as to the proper social etiquette. She didn't know how much time was sufficient before she could invite the idea of them getting together to have fun. Of course she wanted to spend more time with Jaune, but she had to respect his individuality not to mention he had responsibilities as a student at Beacon Academy.
After she had retrieved his information, she had noted that he was the leader of Team JNPR. That carried with it immense amounts of work; it was no secret that being team leader required additional duties and studies in addition to the regular schedules that all academy students needed to fulfill. In that regard, her opinion of him grew higher.
Getting back to the point, maybe it would be best to ask him when would be a good day and time to meet again. She didn't want to be nosy, but she really wanted to see him again and she couldn't be sure he would be coming back to the city unless she scheduled a time with him.
As for the third miscalculation, Penny had no idea what she would do with him should they be able to see each other again. She had done her own research out of curiosity, but what she found was even more confusing than her initial ignorance on the matter. There were so many ways that people spent time together, yet not all of them were necessarily for everyone and that was the crux of the problem. The synthetic girl had no idea what Jaune's likes and dislikes were. She could only gauge his personality with any degree of certainty, not his hobbies or interests. If only their conversation had gone on in length.
She was conflicted as to how to proceed from this juncture. If she were capable of asking for help, she would have done so. Unfortunately, the only people that she could contact at this time were General Ironwood, her father Pietro Polendina, and Winter Schnee. The soldiers and scientists tasked with watching her growth didn't seem like they would understand her troubles. They weren't experts when it came to social interactions, only in dealing with her functionality, hardware and software included.
Penny had little need for a room besides a quiet place to do her own thinking. Frankly speaking, she did not require any sort of necessities for survival that humans and faunus needed. Food, water, sleep, all of them she was capable of partaking in and they could provide her with energy, but it was more efficient to use dust to replenish her systems in all ways, but maybe there was merit in having the ability to do all the things that a normal person could. It would lend itself to her being more genuine.
Not that such a sentiment mattered when the only people who knew about her being a synthetic were the people tasked with working on her.
What should I do? Penny had asked herself that question many times.
The ginger-haired girl felt her legs curl to her chest as she hugged herself tight. She had no idea that making friends was this complicated. If she had known, maybe she would have done a little more thinking before she set out hoping to make friends, but she didn't want to stop now that she had someone that could be her best friend.
It would be so easy to make a call to him right now. All she would have to do was mentally input his number into her system and she could talk to him without the need of a scroll. In fact, she was tempted to just do it right now. Her eyes staring at the rather stark white color of the walls surrounding her was becoming bothersome.
Penny needed a change of scenery, so she made her way out of the room and went for the balcony. The place that she was staying at had the advantage of being many stories up, affording her a view of the City of Vale. Officially, she was a part of Atlas Academy while also being a top-secret asset of the Atlas Military. Accordingly, her trip here was paid for in full and all accommodations were specifically for herself.
Taking a few flight of stairs up and then reaching the roof, she carefully opened the door and was greeted with the sun shining down on her face. A blue sky greeted her with not a single could within sight of her optics. A slight breeze caught her hair and she felt the flutter between every strand. She closed her eyes, simply basking in the feeling.
The feelings that she was experiencing before were going away and being replaced with a more focused and relaxing state. It was a strange yet wonderful gift that she was able to possess such ability to think and rationalize like a human could. It made her existence all the more haphazard and less static. Some would argue that this personality matrix of hers was unnecessary; it introduced human error and wasn't the point of a machine to eliminate error, or at least minimize it?
Penny opened her eyelids once more. In the distance, she could spot Beacon Academy, separated from the rest of civilization, which more or less served the purpose of inspiring others to reach this difficult-to-reach place.
"I wonder if Jaune's doing something fun right now?" Penny smiled sadly. "Maybe he's having fun with his team."
Once she spoke those words, the girl with green eyes began picturing what he could be doing with his other teammates. It was noon time right now; surely they were eating lunch together and talking about classes or homework or maybe they were discussing what to do after all of that was done. Maybe they were all done with their work and they were having fun. Maybe
She knew who they were, their names, their general history, and some other miscellaneous details. She had lifted all of this while hacking into the CCTS to retrieve Jaune's information. It was an impressive bunch that he led, truly she wouldn't deny him that much praise.
But she couldn't help the feeling of being left out.
For some reason, she felt all of his previous reservations go out the window as she made her call. She bit her lips and waited.
One ring.
Nothing so far.
Two rings.
Not quite.
Three.
"Uh, hello?" That was Jaune's voice.
"H-hi, Jaune!" Penny now forgot that she had to say something, but fortunately, she was quick enough to formulate a sentence. "It's Penny!"
"Penny?" The blonde sounded surprised. "Hey, it's good to hear from you, but out of curiosity, when did I-"
"Can I see you again?" Penny didn't want to cut him off, but she really wasn't prepared to be interrogated. "I-I mean, can we… be together… as friends?"
"Um, are you saying you want to hang out?" Jaune rephrased her question. "As in get together some time, go do cool stuff together?"
"Yes!" Penny's chipperness was starting to show more. "But only if you have the time! I wouldn't want to impose on your time!"
"It's cool, Penny!" Jaune's laugh was lively. "Really. As for when I'm available…"
This was now a happy day.
RWBY - - - RWBY
November 1st
80 Years After the Great War
Once again, Jaune found himself kind of proud of himself. The first time he had met Penny, he had gotten her to have a coffee with him and they seemed to hit it off in that brief but interesting time spent together. Frankly speaking, he didn't think what happened was all that special, but it must've been enough seeing as the ginger-haired girl had went out of her way to call him and ask him to go out with her.
At the time of taking the call, Jaune was in the middle of a lunch period with his teammates. Usually, he tried not to let distractions like a scroll call get to him, but when he saw the then-unknown number, he did a double take. He didn't make a habit of handing out his personal information to just anyone, so he answered, curious to see who he knew would be calling him.
Naturally, he was glad to hear Penny's voice. Just listening to her asking for a time they could be buddy-buddy was enough to make his already good mood soar higher. Even though he couldn't see her face, he got the feeling that calling him was a nerve-wracking affair for her. Considering her social inexperience, it was understandable and that was coming from a guy that had a questionable social game.
When asked by his teammates who that was, Jaune simply said that it was a friend asking him to show him around town. He intentionally kept his answer vague because he was still kind of afraid of being made fun of if he said that he was going to be with a girl and just spending time with her. Team JNPR was good to him, but even they made fun of his failure to court the opposite sex. Yes, his ability with girls was a sore spot.
Anyway, after assuring Penny that he would be more than glad to see her again, he informed her of his best times and she too had supplied her availability. Three days, here he was, waiting for her to arrive.
Jaune was considerably early, thirty minutes before their agreed-upon meeting time. Although they hadn't established a firm friendship between the two of them, the teenage boy was all about taking commitments seriously. Plus, he didn't want to be the one responsible for souring her perception of friendship.
What he was worried about most was what they were going to be doing together. While they had decided that today would be a good time to get to know each other better, it never occured to either of them what exactly they ought to be doing. In hindsight, what mattered the most at the time was making sure that she knew that calling him or texting him wasn't a bad thing. Now, he was going in cold turkey without a good feel for what Penny liked to do. The best thing he could manage was to casually walk the shopping district of the city and hoping something would come up as they perused.
Jaune checked the time again. Five more minutes to go.
It might have been a little excessive, but his eyes were casually scanning around for the girl in question. He had a feeling that she was going to be the type to be early as well, but maybe not as much as he was. Whatever the case may be, he would remain vigilant.
His eyes did a scan again and then he spotted a familiar head of bright orange hair.
"Penny!" Jaune waved to her while calling out. "Over here!"
She spotted him almost immediately after he said her name and her face was nothing but smiles and sunshine.
"Jaune!" Penny eagerly greeted him. "Salutations!"
"Hey." He nodded to her. "So, I just realized this, but we didn't exactly talk about what we were going to do, so I was thinking we could head to the shopping district and see if there's anything cool going on there. Does that sound good to you?"
"Yes!" She nodded her head, but frowned slightly. "But what about you? Do you want to go there too?"
"I'm sure we'll find something there that we can both enjoy." Jaune waved off her concern. "And we really can't find something to do, we'll make it up as we go. Oh, but if you've got somewhere in mind-"
"Let's go!" Penny was already grabbing his hand and heading off.
And so the two of them took to the streets, hand in hand, simply looking around. It was Friday night and there were plenty of people around, so they looked like another pair of teenagers having fun just like everyone else.
One thing that Jaune took note of as he and Penny walked through the streets was how she seemed enthralled by many things that he didn't think were all that exciting personally speaking. Everything from items displayed in windows, food vendors, street music, even other people going about their business. It all seemed to fascinate her to an unusual degree. It looked like she wasn't kidding when she said that she didn't get out all that often.
Watching her act like a child in a candy store was sort of fun in and of itself. It was a reminder to him that innocence was still very much alive in the world and it was worth protecting for as long as possible before the reality of adult life sunk in. He could only imagine when that time would come for his compatriot. He hoped that she could squeeze as much time as possible into what little time she had left. After all, she was his age, so it wouldn't be hard to believe that soon, she wouldn't be able to do stuff like this as often.
Or at least that was he thought given her status as a student at Atlas Academy and everything he knew about being a student at Beacon Academy.
"Jaune?" Penny tugged at his arm. "Is something wrong?"
"Hm?" Jaune realized that he had wandered off a bit and quickly reoriented his attention. "No, nothing's wrong. I was just admiring you."
"A-admiring me?" Penny seemed caught off-guard by that. "B-but I haven't done anything praiseworthy."
"Well, it's not so much about something you as it is how you're acting." Jaune chuckled. "I've never seen someone so lively about stuff that most people consider casual or common. It's.. endearing."
He wouldn't outright admit that he found her behavior to be cute and nice to witness. It sounded good in his head, but he couldn't find a way to say it out loud that would make it sound anything other than weird or creepy. Or both.
"O-oh." Penny bowed her head. "I-I've just never been able to experience things like what I'm experiencing now. I've heard so much about the world from my father, but I've never been afforded the chance to take part myself."
"No need to get embarrassed about that." Jaune squeezed her hand. "If you want to try something out or something, just let me know. That's why I'm here after all."
"Really?" Penny gazed up at him, a slight tint in her cheeks. "Is that okay?"
"Sure it is." Jaune smiled to reassure her. "What are friends for, right?"
His words had the desired effect and she stopped questioning if it was reasonable to ask to do something. In the end, he felt like she could make anything fun because her personality was just so damn contagious. He only wished that he could harness her ability to inspire certain emotions in others like she could with her happiness. Maybe then he could get Nora to stop eating so many pancakes and start taking training a little more seriously, but then again, what would be the point of Ren being present?
"Here, if you're having trouble finding something that catches your eye, I'll get you started." Jaune began thinking back to all the hours he spent at malls with his sisters. "How about we start with something simple, like an arcade?"
"An arcade?" Penny tilted her head to his left. "As in, the place where you insert quarters into machines to play games?"
"The one and only." Jaune found her description amusing. "I'll even show you how to play a few of the games. I'm a little rusty, but I think I can at least pull off a decent high score on some of the games."
Besides trying to inspire the ginger-haired girl, there was one other reason why the leader of Team JNPR chose an arcade. For one thing, it was a familiar location. Also, it was one of the few places that he could say that he was in his element. There was also the fact that he wanted to show off for a bit. He felt that he ought to show his newest friend that he was competent at something because all she had to go on was his word.
It was time to prove that he could put his money where his mouth was. He had already said enough to get the ball going. Now he actually had to deliver.
Imagining Penny's disappointed face was both hard and disheartening.
RWBY - - - RWBY
When they first arrived at the arcade, she took note of the various machines lining up the room. By her calculation, there had to be at least several dozen in here. Due to the number of games available, there were a plethora of people occupying the space, either currently active in playing or waiting their turn. There were one or two small groups scattered around here and there, but for the most part, everyone was doing their own thing.
It was all new to her. The sights of so many neon lights, the sounds of music and sound effects, it was a sight that she had no idea could exist, but there was something strangely enticing about it.
"Since you're new to this kind of place, I'll show you around." Jaune was taking the lead. "I can show you how to play a game, but like I said, I'm a bit rusty, so my results may not be great."
"I look forward to learning!" Penny grinned. "What do you recommend first?"
"Well, since you're new, I'd recommend something non-competitive to start." Jaune scanned all around before zoning in on something. "Why don't you try a claw crane first?"
She nodded a couple times before he led her to his left and took a few turns before they came upon a row of machines that looked similar. All of them sported windows with a claw hanging over an opening. Each machine sported different types of stuffed animals with varying colors.
"They're so cute!" Penny couldn't help but fawn over them. "I want one!"
"You think so?" Jaune couldn't help but lightly snicker. "Well, let's see if we can get one. I'll show you how to get one. Maybe I'll be able to get one for you."
"That would be wonderful!" Penny flashed him her best smile. "Please do, Friend Jaune!"
"Well, how can I fail now?" Jaune casually stepped up to one the machines. "Alright, here it goes."
Once he settled on a machine full of prizes to win, he fished into his pocket and retrieved some change, carefully inserting the coins before taking a good look at what was inside before making a move. His brow furrowed and he looked to be concentrating really hard. It suited him strangely enough.
Focusing her optics back on what he was doing, she noted how his hand carefully moved the joystick around, but not making any immediate move to lower the claw. This lasted for about fifteen seconds before he then paused with his free hand over the large button. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them and pressed the button.
The three-pronged claw lowered itself and reached for the item below it. Before the claw could completely come down, Jaune then pressed the big button again and Penny noted how the claw responded by instantly clamping down on its prey before lifting up and moving to deposit the stuffed animal.
He reached in and gently retrieved his spoils: a striped tiger plushie.
"He's all yours." Jaune handed it to her. "Or she, it's your choice."
"You don't want him?" Penny wasn't sure if taking this was right.
"I'd feel better if you took it." Jaune responded. "I did win it for you, after all. Consider it your first gift from your new friend."
Well, when he put it that way, she couldn't say no, so she accepted his gift, hugging it close to her. She would make sure to take care of it and treasure it, that much she did know for sure. She wasn't sure what people normally did with stuffed animals, but she could always look it up later once this outing was finished.
"So, you think you can take this thing on?" Jaune gestured to the claw machine. "This one's on me."
"Yes!" Penny nodded. "I will gladly give this game an attempt!"
She was going to do more than merely attempt to win. She was going to win. After his gesture to her, she felt the need to make sure that he knew that their friendship wasn't one-sided. It needed to be a mutually beneficial relationship, at least that's what seemed like the ideal thing for a friendship.
The green in her irises processed all the information that she needed to properly secure another prize. This combined with her memory of how he played made for quick work. She guided the claw to the ideal location before pressing the button, taking note of when exactly to click again. From there, it was just a matter of watching her own winning fall into her hands.
This time, the machine produced a phoenix bird.
"Here!" Penny proudly displayed it. "This is yours!"
"You can keep it." Jaune shook his head. "This is your first time playing, so I thi-"
"Please take it!" Penny shoved it into his chest while stepping very close to him to plead. "My father once told me that a decent person always repays a favor, so that is what I intend to do."
"Eh." Jaune appeared unsure for a moment about how to proceed, but he put up no further resistance. "Thanks."
"Thank you! Thank you so much!"
"For what?"
"For giving me a gift and for teaching me how to play this game!"
"Huh. I never thought I'd be thanked for something like this, but you're welcome."
And true to her words, she meant her gratitude. Surely, this must be something that he considered to be uneventful for him considering how he handled himself. The fact that he had willingly taken the time to show her how to do it was what mattered most. Now she could do it herself. This was now without a doubt her most useless skill, but she couldn't find any reason to discard it.
"So how about another game?" Jaune said while surveying the area. "I think we can try something more in line with what we're training for?"
"'What we're training for?'" Penny mirrored his words, lacing in her own confusion.
"I want to be a huntsman. You want to be a huntress." Jaune pointed out. "Lots of people want to kill Grimm, so it's only natural that there be a few games centered around monster hunting. I'll show you my personal favorite one."
Once again, they moved to another section of the arcade. From the look of it, this place featured more aggressive fighting games, many of them from a first-person perspective. Many of the games feature weapon replicas of swords and guns and players were systematically working on slaying the enemies on the screen by responding with the appropriate physical action. Of course, none of it was what actual combat was like, but everyone playing was having fun and that was the point.
"This is Grimm Grenadier." He was already inserting coins and handling the prop weapon. "Basically, it's blowing up bad guys a lot. It's co-op, so we can play together."
"Roger that." She honestly sure what she was doing, but she followed his lead.
It turned out that this game really was as simple as he made it out to be, but the variation made a rather easy premise into something more unpredictable. Enemies coming in from all sides, grenade types affecting maximum damage output, environmental changes, it constantly changed pace in order to avoid boredom.
Granted, this sort of thing was easy for Atlas's top secret weapon. She had spent thousands of hours in training simulators that had far worse combat conditions and yet this experience was fun.
The way that Jaune acted when they were playing was charming to watch in a way. Gone was any sort of seriousness replaced by a more childlike exuberant expression. Together, they were coordinating their attacks, bailing each other out of tough situations, and just doing whatever together.
There were so many practical and functional fallacies with this game speaking from the perspective of a weapon of mass destruction. What they were doing was purely for entertainment purposes and nothing more. Everything about it was so unrealistic; from the way the weapons were represented on-screen to the sound effects to the way that Grimm behaved, all of it was clearly the work of someone who only had surface-level knowledge of what it meant to fight the monstrosities.
But despite all of these illogicalities, she couldn't help but feel lively as she and Jaune did their thing without a care in the world.
This is really fun. Penny pulled the trigger again and watched an on-screen Beowolf disintegrate.
She fired again.
RWBY - - - RWBY
Jaune felt the airship ascend into the sky, feeling fulfilled. This afternoon had been one of the most relaxing that he had experienced ever since coming to Vale. There was a time where he had briefly figured out the most popular sites in the city, but at the time that was all he could afford to do. He assumed that he would return to actually have some entertainment, maybe with a friend or two and he had accomplished that.
Penny, whether she acknowledged it or not, was extremely good at playing arcade games. They had spent a fair amount of time inside and as they kept playing, it became clear that either she was really gifted with this or she just picked things up quickly. For someone who claimed to have no experience in arcades, her performance said otherwise. Hell, she was beating him at his own game and he had considerable time and experience on his side.
Although his pride was wounded, the one thing that managed to bring him back down to Remnant was how the girl with green eyes appeared so vibrant. It was clear as day that she had fun and in the end, that was the most important thing: to have fun. Winning and all of that was cool, but if everyone walked away happy, that was even better, at least the knight liked to think that was the case.
Jaune checked the time on his scroll. He would have to hurry if he wanted to grab some food from the cafeteria before it closed. While he did manage to get some snacks for himself and Penny, it was only to tie him down until he got back to Beacon. Although junk food was awesome, it was no substitute for a meal consisting of quality food.
Maybe the rest of Team JNPR was there. He did say that he would hopefully be back in time for dinner, so maybe they were waiting for him to get back.
As he used his finger to scroll down hist list of contacts, his eyes fell upon Penny's number, which had recently been added before they had parted. Honestly, he wasn't sure how she knew his number and there was a nagging feeling that maybe he was better off not knowing, but now that he had her number, things didn't have to be weird. They could communicate with each other whenever possible.
In the back of his mind, a small part of Jaune was cheering. Whenever it came to girls, getting their number was a major step forward in the relationship, or at least that's how he understood what went on between boys and girls. He wouldn't be so hasty as to label their relationship with a certain word, but they seemed to be heading somewhere. Only time would tell what the two of them would become.
The leader of Team JNPR stared down at the City of Vale as he rose higher into the sky. He could only wonder one thing.
What's she doing now
I'm honestly still trying to get my footing when it comes to writing this story. It needs to be a slow burn so that proper development can happen, but I don't want to bore you all. There will lots of trial and error going forward, that's for sure.
Reception so far has been positive and I hope to keep up that momentum. Thanks to everyone who chose to give this story a chance. If you can, reviews and feedback are appreciated. Apologies for grammatical errors. I will fix them as necessary.
Thanks for reading.
"The friendship that can cease has never been real."
St. Jerome
