CHAPTER 8: DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

Remnant

City of Vale

November 24th,

80 Years After the Great War

Penny was gladdened that the next few days flew by in a blur. She had recently been given new combat protocols to test out and she had been spending most of her time improving her viability as the world's future savior. It would at least a month before she fully integrated all of these additions into her systems and mastered them. That meant that she would be spending a considerable amount of time in training and less time outside. It was a shame that she would lose free time, but her priorities were clear.

But if she was being completely honest with herself, there were other reasons that she wanted to immerse herself with her duties. When she had first begun this augmentation to her combative protocols, she was still in a bind in regards to the reveal of Jaune's romantic affections for Weiss. At the time, she had not reached a satisfactory conclusion about her best friend's feelings and since then, she had not been afforded the time to think deeper on the matter, not that she wanted to think about it at all.

The idea that the boy with blonde hair and blue eyes might become romantically involved with the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company, however small the chances, still didn't sit well with her. It made no sense that she would be feeling this way. Wasn't it the right thing to cheer for her best friend to do his best in securing that relationship?

Why did she not want it to come to fruition?

Those had been the questions that floated around in Penny's processor before she began devoting herself exclusively to her training. It was then a simple matter of not thinking about it as she went through trial after trial of run throughs and tests. Thanks to the nature of her being, she didn't have to take rests. Practices could go on for hours on end without pause. It was only when her handlers needed to take breaks did she stop.

In those instances where she was not in the midst of combat training, the ginger-haired girl took the time to review any updates and news that both her father and General Ironwood sent her. There was little in the way of groundbreaking news, although regarding the Kingdom of Vale specifically, there seemed to be an increasing number of robberies of dust, enough so that the supply was becoming limited and the demand was still consistent, thus raising overall prices across the entire kingdom.

It was a curious development to be sure, but ultimately it was not Penny's concern. The time for her to be formally introduced to all of the world was fast approaching. Although it might seem like a long time to the normal person, it was truly not. Between now and then, she needed to be as prepared as possible to project an image. She was the face of next-generation technology meant to bring more crippling blows to the Grimm.

There was also the small matter of her recent visits outside becoming more noticeable by the people that were in charge of her. Although the synthetic had been able to alter her memories so that her interactions with her friends were hidden, she could not just as easily explain her frequent absences from their base of operations. She had already anticipated this, but in light of her recent distractions, she had not formulated an excuse.

Although Penny was far superior to any human or faunus in terms of her ability to respond to situations, the response she had given at the time of being questioned was that she fancied going outside because she had never seen Vale before. There was also the excuse that she wanted to understand the people of the world so that she could better understand how to protect them as her role in the future dictated.

For the time being, it would suffice, but the ginger head had been warned that her time was coming and in order for her introduction to have a far greater impact on the world stage, she needed to limit her time outside. Atlesians were known to be very adherent to rules and regulations, so these orders most likely stemmed from their own orders related either from her father or from General Ironwood.

All of this need for secrecy would be uncovered once Penny fought in the Vytal Festival. Hopefully, she would advance far into the tournament and showcase her potential. As she was now, there were few first-year students of the huntsman academies that could contend with her in a one-on-one fight. Perhaps only Pyrrha Nikos and a handful of other noteworthy individuals had a chance of beating her.

And speaking of the four-time Mistral Tournament champion, she was Jaune's partner. No doubt that he benefited from having such a highly competent fighter paired up with him for training and practice. She could only assume that this was the case; the blonde boy didn't talk much about his training at Beacon Academy, but he had never once said a bad thing about the people on his team that he led.

Jaune has so many people to call his friends. Penny thought to herself. I wish that I could say the same.

Her lack of company was likely causing her judgement to be thinking this way. She couldn't help but replay all the times she spent with her best friend. Everything between them, she could recall in perfect detail. These memories were locked away in a specially-partitioned part of her memory database. This space was so tightly concealed that no one short of a master hacker would be able to find out that it existed, let alone access it.

And always at the end of these recollections was Jaune speaking of his romantic feelings for Weiss Schnee.

She saw that everytime.

It made her frown.

The synthetic checked the time. It was almost time to resume her training. She did her final checks, ensuring that her weapons were ready to deploy and that her aura was at its full capacity. She was quick about these inspections; the sooner she could get through them, the more time she could spend on the exercises.

"All systems are green." Penny reported. "I am ready to resume."

"Affirmative." The system operator replied. "A random scenario will be used. This exercise will have a time limit of ten minutes. Only unarmed combat and aura may be used. Understood?"

"I understand." Penny said.

"Answer received." The operator acknowledged. "Beginning in three, two, one. Begin."

The synthetic girl focused her optics on the shifting battlefield terrain all around her. Atlesian holographic technology had advanced to such a degree that it was now capable of providing a wide variety of scenarios that any combatant might face.

In her case, Penny had to start with the drills that the usual Atlesian trooper would have to face. That had been almost a year's worth of near-endless work to get to the level she was at now, but in order for her to be able to take part in the type of combat that experienced huntsmen and huntresses faced, she would need perhaps three more years.

But there was no need to think that far ahead. She only needed to be concerned about passing this test right now.

The current landscape shaped by the holographic technology simply showed her a flat plain of nothing but sand for what appeared to be kilometers. This might be the sort of thing she could witness in Vacuo. To the untrained eye, it was a very convincing sight.

Penny felt the ground shift beneath her and she instantly somersaulted, jumping high enough to evade a giant stinger meant to impale her. That was a Death Stalker, so once her feet landed, she did a few backflips to put a few more meters of distance away from herself and the enemy.

The scorpion-like Grimm appeared from the ground, its pincer snapping open and shut aggressively, its tail moving up and down slightly. She estimated that its full length with its tail extended outward, was about thirty meters. If this was the only one that she had to be worried about, it would be a relatively straightforward fight.

It would be far from that.

All around her, the sand rose up, and then collapsed back to the ground to reveal smaller Death Stalkers, probably no bigger than a meter in length with their tales extended outward. These little ones were hardly a threat on their own. Even a first-year student in a primary combat school could dispatch one in seconds, but when in hordes, they became exponentially more dangerous. Add that to the fact that this horde was being led by a Grimm likely of Alpha classification and an unfair fight was in the making.

But Penny would not lament on her luck. She would win and she would advance to the next scenario.

There was only forward.

She would always look to the future.


RWBY - - - RWBY


Everyone had their own business to take care of. That was simple how life worked. Society was a complex beast and everyone had to do their part to ensure that it functioned in a decent capacity. Not only that, but personal goals and ambitions played into it. The world was a big place and everyone wanted something out of life. There had to be a reason for getting up every morning. So really, life was all about being busy.

Jaune had his own duties to take care of. Contrary to popular belief, being a leader of a huntsman team wasn't as simple as it was cracked up to be in the media. In actuality, leaders were held up to a much higher standard overall than the non-leaders. They needed to be stronger and faster than everyone else, not to mention know more about tactics and strategy. Team leaders had to be everything that a regular student was and much more.

In order to meet up to those standards, additional classes and an extra dose of physical training was put onto the knight's schedule. Some days of the week, he could be expected to get maybe five hours of sleep at best. Other days, he got lucky and was hit with the usual work load that everyone else had, leaving him with some spare time, which allowed him some time in the past for outings. There were also weekends, but he usually did at least a little bit of work during that time as well.

But despite the amount of work that ate up his days, Jaune felt that something was different about his days overall. At first, it was a small feeling and he continued to ignore it in favor of more pressing matters at hand. For a time, he almost forgot that nagging feeling, but no matter how difficult his days were, he always managed to find at least some time to his thoughts at some point during any given day. In those moments, his thoughts always found its way back to how things weren't quite the same.

The answer to why his days were different came to him quickly when he casually looked through his call history on his scroll. His eyes fell to Penny's number and then a realization hit him: they had not even so much as texted each other for a week. He didn't want to jump to any hasty conclusions, but he couldn't help thinking that it was something related to him causing her to not contact him. His rational side told him that was mere arrogance talking. She had her own life to take care of, something he had no business being a part of unless she willingly let him see that part of her life.

All the same, Jaune felt the change in his life. It was actually amazing to him that such a short amount of time spent with one ginger-haired, green-eyed girl could make his life that much more different. It felt like the sort of change that could only be seen in those cheesy romance novels, but apparently the human heart worked in mysterious ways, at least in ways that he didn't understand himself.

It was fortunate that the blonde boy didn't have much time to dwell on his newest friend for too long. As much as he wanted to see her again and just do whatever with her, he had a job to do and things he wanted to do. He could only surmise that things with Atlas were getting interesting. He had to trust that she would be okay for the time being. In a way, that would be a test of their friendship. She was a better fighter than he was, so he could trust her to protect herself and do what was right.

So he returned to the present, which was in the cafeteria with his team and Team RWBY.

"...we seized all the dust in the world!" That had to be Nora finishing up another of her stories. "We became king and queen of the world!"

"She's really been obsessed with being queen of something." Ren sighed and shook his head. "I can't find an explanation for it."

"Maybe what she's saying is that she wants people to pay more attention to her." Jaune offered his own opinion offhandedly. "You know, since people kind of disregard her because of her… energy."

"Yes!" Nora exclaimed. "Jaune-Jaune's gets it!"

"If you wanted us to spend more time with you, you should have said so, Nora." Ren did his best to remain grounded. "Why the roundabout stories?"
Jaune already knew. "Would it be the Nora thing to do to just ask for something in a straightforward manner?"

"Point… taken." Ren conceded. "I should've known better."

It was king of surprising that the blonde knew the answer to the bubbly bomber's dilemma before his other male teammate. Nora and Ren have been together for most of their lives. He would have assumed they knew everything there was to know about each other, inside and out, even the small stuff.

That was the extent that his own observations would have gone, but as he resumed eating, he felt like he was being watched. His eyes then turned to see that all of Team RWBY, even Blake, was staring at him, as was Pyrrha. Ren and Nora were in their own world.

"What?" Jaune questioned.

"Are you okay, Jaune?" Ruby asked him. "You seem different."

Jaune raised an eyebrow. "In what way?"

"More sure of yourself." Yang answered. "More confident, less wishy-washy, more observant."

Jaune shrugged. "I don't feel any different than I usually do."

In all seriousness, he didn't feel any different than he usually did, yet the rest of his friends seemed to think otherwise. He supposed that it was a good thing that he was changing for the better without himself even knowing it. He certainly didn't want to become an arrogant prick or anything like that.

"It's kind of unbelievable." Blake was more blunt with her words. "Given how you started out."

"Okay, seriously?" Jaune grit his teeth and let out a loud sigh. "What, am I not allowed to be anything other than the comedic relief of the group? I want to be competent, even awesome at my job. Is that so hard to believe?"

"What Blake means is that we're surprised." Ruby shot her black-haired teammate a dark look. "You've changed in a lot of ways."

Annoyance on his face, the knight regarded the reaper. His expression held for a moment before it dissolved into resignation. "Yeah, well life happens, yeah? It was really fun being a punching bag for the entertainment of everyone. I absolutely LOVED my role."

It kind of hurt that the people around him thought so little of him. Sure, he wasn't all that great to start, but that didn't have to mean he would stay that way forever. Change was always happening.

For a moment, he just wanted to be angry to get it all out. It would be easy to just rant and rage even if only for a moment. At least it would be cathartic if not productive. It was so tempting. The sarcasm in his voice was only just the tip of the iceberg of more negative emotions he wanted to unleash.

But clearly his emotions were showing or his intent because he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. Pyrrha, who was still sitting by his side, squeezed slightly. She gave him a smile; it was not meant as a form of pity. It simply was her doing her best to remind him that she had his back. Not once had she called him out on his shortcomings.

"Was there anything else?" Jaune glared lightly at his friends.

"No." Surprisingly, it was Weiss who spoke. "And… we're sorry."

He was tempted to reply with some barbed words, but then he just felt his energy leave him. Being mad was taking a lot out of him, more than he cared to admit. Maybe there was some merit to people saying that anger wasn't a good thing to live with.

"It's fine." Jaune managed to reign himself in and looked away. "I'll get over it."

No, he was far from fine, but he was practically a man at this point and a future huntsman to boot. Dealing with unpleasant things was just part of his job. He simply had an uphill battle to win given that he had to earn respect in a very grueling process. Deep down, he knew that what he felt was merely the product of his own inadequacies. He should know better than to let them get to him. People still made fun of him for being weak relative to the rest of the freshman, but it still hurt his pride, whatever that amounted to.

"Jaune." Pyrrha called out to him softly.

He didn't say anything else.


RWBY - - - RWBY


With all of the numerous tests that Penny had been doing nearly nonstop, she had unintentionally freed up the rest of the day. To be more specific, her efforts in training had been enough to complete the new programs that had been installed within her. Now she had to wait for the next updates to come, which wouldn't be happening for at least a few more days.

Meaning that she had nothing planned.

So the synthetic decided that she wanted to go outside. What she would do from that point on, she had no idea. It just seemed like a good idea to not keep herself cooped up. Maybe something interesting might happen.

The sun was already beginning to dip into the horizon, lighting the atmosphere with an orange glow. According to the time of the day, the traffic was heavy. Many people appeared to be making their way back home for the day, no doubt to spend time with the most important people in their lives.

Their families.

Penny continued to walk forward, pondering on the concept. In the most strict definition of the word, family meant many people living as one unit under a single roof. Said unit usually included at least one parent and at least one child. This was what most considered a traditional family, but when looking at the perspectives of others, family could mean a multitude of things. There were so many ways to describe a family.

It was something that she knew that she would never have. She realized that as she was now, she wouldn't even be able to have a family the way that most people did. She was merely a synthetic taking the form of a human girl. There was no flesh and blood to speak of, no genetics and no organic basis. All of it was machinery and coding, all working in conjunction to form an imitation.

Penny knew that this shouldn't bother her. From the moment that she experienced consciousness, the realization that she was meant for a single purpose was ingrained into her being. There was no use even debating this with herself. Her situation was fixed and nothing short of a miracle would change things.

But she was a creation of logic. Miracles were the things that she understood as an event unexplained by natural or scientific law, and therefore a product of religious or divine belief. Such conclusions possessed no evidence or proof.

Yet in spite of the synthetic understanding what her life amounted to, she couldn't just accept it, at least not fully. Such a fault in her own logic was not good considering that she had been programmed to be unwavering in the duty that she carried on her shoulders.

There is no one to discuss this with, not even Jaune. Penny sighed as she made her way down the street. Is there even anything that I can do?

A ring registered in her audio receptors. That was the sound of someone calling her. She carefully checked to see who was calling her. At a time like this and without any warning of any kind, it could only be one person.

"Jaune." Penny said quietly, waiting for another ring before answering. "Hello?"

"Hey, Penny." Jaune offered a greeting. "It's been a bit, hasn't it?"

"Yes." She smiled, even when he couldn't see it. "It has been a bit."

In comparison to the average human life? Not really, but it didn't seem like the time to make such a comment.

"Thought we could just talk a bit." Jaune sounded exhausted. "Do you… have the time?"

"Yes, of course." Penny's eager reply almost interrupted him. "I would love to."

"Cool." Jaune sounded like his spirits were lifted. "So what's been going on with you? I… figured you were busy given our lack of communication."

"I was learning some new combat techniques." Penny was truthful to the extent that she could be without revealing anything critical. "I was eager to try them out."

"That sounds cool." Jaune said from the other end. "Anything you want to share?"

"I think it would be best to wait until the Vytal Festival." Penny couldn't talk about that. "They are considered very unorthodox moves that are most effective when completely unknown to the opposition."

"Ah, okay. I get it." Jaune didn't pursue the topic further. "I'll look forward to it. I've got some things I've been learning too, so maybe we'll get to surprise each other. In a good way, that is."

"That would be most wonderful." Penny agreed with him. "I hope that will be the case."

"Yeah."

A few seconds passed, hardly anything to fret over, yet that silence felt like a very long time. With their conversations usually being free-flowing and constant, even a few seconds seemed like a very long pause.

"I was-"

"Do you-"

They had tried talking at the same time, and they both processed this quickly before silencing themselves. Again, another pause that felt far longer than it actually was. There was clearly an odd feeling between them.

"You first." Penny quickly spoke.

"No, no, no." Jaune counterred her. "You go first."

She thought about insisting that he say what he wished to say first, but reconsidered and thought better of it. They might end up in a look of deciding who would get to go first. He had offered to allow her to be the first instead of himself. There shouldn't be any problems with her speaking.

But then Penny realized that she didn't even know what exactly she wanted to say. Her first attempt at speaking was merely an effort to fill the void with something so as to disrupt the awkward silence between them. Now that she had put herself first, a closer look into her thought process revealed much doubt and indecision.

And she had to think of something to say fast. She might have the processing capabilities of a supercomputer, but that computing power was brought down by the addition of human emotions, something that was hard enough to comprehend.

"Jaune… do you know why you fell in love with Weiss Schnee?" Penny was too late to take back her words. "What about her do you like? What qualities made you fall in love with her?"

It was a good thing that he couldn't see her right now because her face was positively turning pale. Of all the questions she could have asked him, it had to be the one that would make her sound suspicious. She couldn't take it back even if she wanted to. All she could do now was roll with it.

"Why do I like Weiss?" Jaune parried her question. "Well, I guess it's because she has a lovely singing voice, she's really good at fighting, she's got talent, she's beautiful, pretty much perfect."

The way he spoke to her made it obvious that he held the SDC heiress in high regards at the very least. There was clear passion and longing in his voice. He might not be a loud person nor very overwhelming in presence, but no one could say that his words were empty nor meaningless.

She didn't like that at all.

Not one bit.

"I see." Penny did her best to not let her emotions be heard in her voice. "Is there… anything else?"

"Well, there are probably a bunch of other things, but basically, it all boils down to her being an amazing girl." Jaune continued with her explanation without a care in the world. "I guess… I want to be more like her. I mean, she's a Schnee. That means she's amazing by default, right?"

She clenched her fist unconsciously. She could hear nothing but absolute praise and reverence for the heiress and nothing else. He did have feelings for the girl and his numerous ways of praising her made it clear that he wasn't going to let go of that affection easily.

However, Jaune could praise Weiss to the ends of the world and Penny knew that she wouldn't like it no matter what. It wasn't that she disliked the second-born daughter of Jacque Schnee because that wasn't the case. As she had realized when first learning of Jaune's affections, it all boiled down to her friendship potentially being overshadowed and perhaps even being taken away from her.

"Penny… why do you want to know about who I like?" Jaune made his own inquiry. "Not that I'm not happy about talking about it, but this is just so out of left field."

Her current musings had led her to being silent. She almost forgot that she was in the middle of a conversation. How rude of her to forget that she was speaking to her best friend. She shook her head to get herself back into the present.

"Jaune... what is love to you?" Penny found something else to ask about.


RWBY - - - RWBY


The blonde boy heard the ginger-hair's question and he couldn't help but furrow his brow in consideration. This dialogue was starting to get really deep and he had a feeling that she wasn't asking him these questions just for the hell of it.

"Um, what is love…" Jaune wasn't sure he had ever had to explain his thought process on the matter to anyone. "Well, I think…"

His first thought was to think about his family. They were his only examples when it came to love of any kind. If he were back home, his next words would definitely be much different than what he was going to say now. Spending time away from them had given him the perspective necessary to really understand what he had.

Jaune knew his answer. "Love is all about… accepting a person for who they are, good and bad. Not everyone is perfect, but when you're able to love a person in spite of their weaknesses and flaws, then you know that the love is… real... substantial."

As he explained his reasoning to her, a thought clicked into his head. He liked Weiss and he could pinpoint the exact point when he developed an interest in the heiress. It was when he overheard her describing him.

'Cute guys like tall, blonde, and scraggly over there.' Jaune recalled in his memories. Or something like that.

That was the first time that any girl had described him that way, so naturally he wanted to get to know Weiss. As he saw more of what she could do and what kind of person she was, he could only grow to like her more. She was everything he wanted to be. It was just so frustrating that she wouldn't even give him a chance.

"So does that mean that you know Weiss that well?" Penny was naturally asking her question while applying his logic. "Or has she revealed any of her more private matters to you?"

He wanted to say that she had indeed chosen to become close to him by revealing things that she had revealed to no one else but her family, something like that, but to say that would be a lie. He only knew as much as he could see at Beacon Academy and whatever public information was available.

Had he even had a real conversation with her before?

Like, ever?

"I…" Jaune now felt stupid. "It's… complicated. No, it's not. We aren't that close. If I'm being completely honest, I talked with you way more than I've ever talked with her."

He had almost led himself into a lie. His pride had flared up at the realization of his own contradiction. That was the worst feeling in the world, but he knew better than to continue digging a hole for himself. He had already done that once and it hadn't worked out at all. Still, it was a struggle to stop his pride from dooming himself.

But now that he had caught his own contradiction, his mind could only began to ask questions.

What did he feel for Weiss?

Was it love?

Was it even real?

Jaune never thought he would ever second guess himself regarding how he felt for Weiss.

Now he was.


I was able to get back in time for the end of 2020.

This year has been good and bad for me in many ways, but it's a part of my life, a part of my past and I'll accept it all. These stories are a part of my past as well as my present and future. Yes, I plan to stick around despite becoming part of the Army in some capacity.

I've got nothing to say in terms of this chapter because I'm rereading everything I've worked on, so it's like I'm seeing my work for the first time.

If any of you have questions, comments, or concerns about what's going on, refer to my profile note or PM me.

Happy New Years!

-Ktyou