Chapter 16

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." Future-Penny quietly exclaimed to herself upon reaching her destination. Apparently Luna had taken her instructions to transport her to just before Ciel had been captured a bit too literally, as she had somehow managed to arrive on a hillside overlooking the battle where Ciel was inevitably captured. "Note to self: next time I make a request for Luna to do something for me, be extra specific about what it is that I want." She couldn't help but remark.

She then shook her head. "Focus, Penny. It's not too late to help everyone," she said to herself. "Okay, how can I help turn the tide in our favor?"

As if to answer her question, she spotted Ruby running off to get the tank. "That might work," Penny declared, beginning to get an idea of what she was going to do. Using her swords to propel herself towards the tank before Ruby arrived, she immediately removed the rear access panel and began tinkering with the control settings. She figured that if she could prevent Weiss from being hurt, Team RWBY would have one less thing to worry about and focus on stopping Paulette.

"Hello!" Sheila chimed. "And thank you for activating the control settings of the M808V Main Battle Tank! My name is Sheila! How may I help you?"

"Hello, Sheila." Penny smiled. "I need access to your cannon's control settings."

"Certainly!" Sheila replied. "To invert controls, enter the code A-1. To enable Dust ammunition, enter code B-2. To disable friendly-fire protocols, enter code C-3."

"Yes! C-3! Disable friendly-fire protocols!" Penny entered the code and put the access panel back in place.

"Friendly-fire protocols disabled!" Sheila declared. "Auto-target lock will no longer be able to distinguish between friend or foe and may fire on either!"

"Wait, what?" Penny gasped. "No! That's not what I wanted!"

But it was too late. Ruby entered the canopy of the tank and Sheila introduced herself. Grumbling with frustration, the android decided to cut her losses and find Raven. Hopefully, the older huntress would have some sort of implant in her that would allow Penny to temporarily control her body just like Paulette.

Doing her best to avoid drawing attention to herself, she approached where Raven and Yang had been doing the latter's sword training, hoping that the former would be there. As luck would have it, she was, but so was Summer. Deciding that she didn't want to risk drawing too much attention from Ruby's mother - and her own, apparently - just yet, she hid nearby, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

"So, that's why you ran away." Summer suddenly declared, resulting in Penny raising her eyebrow in curiosity at that statement, apparently having stumbled upon them mid-conversation.

"Yes, I'm the latest Spring Maiden," Raven remarked, causing the hidden android to widen her eyes in surprise. She, like so many others, had heard/read "The Story of the Seasons", so she knew all about the legend of the Seasonal Maidens. However, no amount of reading could have prepared her for the possibility that Ruby's Aunt was one of those legendary individuals.

That said, it seemed Raven and Summer weren't done talking. "Even if Ozpin hadn't mentioned the possibility of the forces of darkness going after my family to get to me, there's a chance I would have still avoided coming home, given who the last Maiden was."

"Okay, I'll bite; who was she?"

"Carla."

Summer gasped. "That Carla?!"

Raven nodded, whipping a tear from her eye. "I have no idea how my goddaughter managed to get the powers of the Maiden, but it's clear at some point, she got the idea in her head that if she had command of the sky above her head, than she deserved to rule over the people who dwelled beneath it. Her power-high was so extreme, in fact, that neither of us even recognized each other until I held her dying in my arms."

Summer gave a grim nod of her own. "She flew too close to the sun."

Raven sighed. "Yes. After that, I was too ashamed to be able to even think about showing my face around Taiyang and Yang… until I got word of Cinder's attack on Beacon and decided that I wasn't going to lose another family member. Don't worry: Ruby already set me straight on that front."

"Fair enough, but regarding that bit about us being in danger: allow me to ask you a question," Summer declared, "If you had told us all of this years ago, and we had offered to help regardless, would you have let us?"

Raven blinked. "I...I don't know. I never thought…"

"That's right. You didn't think. At all." Summer remarked, before giving a sigh. "I know that you only wanted to protect us, but you didn't call, you didn't write, you didn't even give us any indication that you were even alive other then some hearsay from Qrow. Given the choice, we'd have gladly stuck by you, but you never gave us that choice, now did you?"

Raven couldn't help but let some tears fall to the ground as the reality of it all struck her. "I...I'm sorry."

"I know you are," Summer said with a grin, "and that's why I'm not mad at you. The next time you have a target on your back, though? Let us know about it."

"Will do," Raven said with a light chuckle. "You know, you'd make a pretty good Maiden yourself."

"Yeah, I think so too." Raven couldn't help but give her teammate a light punch in the shoulder at that declaration even as the two of them shared a brief laugh.

Penny watched as Summer left with a satisfied grin on her face before nodding to herself. "Time to get to work."

Making sure her body wouldn't be discovered, Penny's artificial intelligence left her physical body and headed towards Raven. As she'd hoped, the Branwen woman had a computer chip implanted in her neck. Needless to say, she was shocked to find that it was connected to a pacemaker. With this revelation, Penny realized that she would have to be much more cautious than when she possessed Ciel. One slip up, and she could risk stopping Raven's heart.

Unfortunately, she soon found herself facing another unforeseen danger. The Spring Maiden manifested herself in the form of a red avatar of elemental power. Obviously, she perceived Penny's program as a threat and quickly attacked. Hoping to calm down the entity, she declared, "Salutations, Spirit of the Spring Maiden. I'm-"

"I know exactly who you are." The Spirit remarked, calming down if only slightly, seeming to realize that the entity before her was not malicious in nature. That wasn't to say that it welcomed her with open arms, however, as evidenced by her next few words: "I also know that you intend to 'borrow' my power for a brief moment, but know that you are not welcome to it."

"I'm not Cinder!" Penny declared with determination. "I have no intention of harming you or your worthy bearer in any way!"

"You misunderstand," the Spring Maiden declared, seeming to give her a much more friendly smile. "You've already proven more than worthy of being a Maiden, but this is my power…" The Spring Maiden's smile quickly disappeared as her fingers wrapped around Penny's neck. "And worthy or not, I cannot, will not let you do this! SO, GET OUT!"

Penny was both shocked and disturbed that she could feel the Spring Maiden's fingers tighten. So startled, in fact, that she had forgotten about Raven's pacemaker and began lashing out to protect herself. In the outside world, Raven clenched her chest in pain and fell to her knees. Her former teammates looked back and immediately rushed to help her. Unfortunately, Taiyang and Raven failed to notice Summer being kidnapped by Paulette.

"Rae!" Taiyang kneeled down, afraid to touch his former lover for fear of harming her. "What's wrong?"

"M-my heart!" Raven hissed through her teeth. "It hurts!"

"What can I do? What do you need?!"

"Y-you… you need to run." Raven's eyes flared with elemental power. In a last-ditch effort to save herself, she summoned a powerful storm in the hopes that a focused lightning strike would reset her pacemaker.

Back inside her mind, Penny could feel her digital codes slipping from Raven's mind. "Listen to me, before you go!" The Spring Maiden whispered just as Penny faded away. "It's obvious you don't know who you are, so listen! Whatever they've told you is a lie! You are not who you think you are! You-"

That was all Penny heard before waking up in her synthetic body; momentarily stunned by her encounter with the Maiden. Why did she react the way she had? Why did she behave as though she recognized her?

Meanwhile, Summer had honestly had better days. Being tied to a tree with surgical tape had not been one of the things she saw herself doing today. That said, she couldn't help but give a sigh of relief upon spotting a familiar robot-girl. "Penny, Paulette and Tyrian tied me up: get me out of this thing so I can help the others!"

Future-Penny, or rather an earlier version of her that had decided to make sure that she joined up with Ruby and the others, smiled. "You got it." Just as she moved in to help, however, she paused. "Wait a second, would this be a good thing, or a bad thing?"

Summer couldn't help but blink. "How would setting me free be a bad thing?"

Future-Penny n-16 gave a frustrated groan. "If you understood the day I've been having, you'd be second-guessing yourself too. Doesn't help matters much that I just know that you'll likely run into me again later…"

Summer quirked an eyebrow. "...and given that you are on such good terms with Yang and Ruby, that's a bad thing because?"

Future-Penny n-16 shook her head. "Because it might not be me, but the me with the bomb!"

"What?"

"Oh right, now I remember. I already set Summer free one of the other times." Future-Penny n-17 declared, having chanced upon the scene while regaining her senses, before gasping. "Oh sweet, then that means I'm the one that interrupts me, and then manages to confuse Summer!"

Summer shakes her head in frustration. "You're darn right I'm confused!"

Future-Penny n-17 just snorted. "Oh, don't worry, Summer. I'm just supposed to tell her that it's okay to set you free."

Future-Penny n-16 blinked. "It is?"

Future Penny n-17 shrugged. "Well, that's what I said to me when I was you, and it seemed to work out okay."

Summer groaned. "Seriously, if you're trying to confuse me, it's working."

Future Penny n-16 shook her head. "Never mind that," she declared as she cut Summer free. "Okay, now that you're free, Summer, it's time to execute the second part of my plan. I'm gonna possess Raven, and then use her Maiden powers to defuse the bomb."

"Good luck," future-Penny n-17 declared with a sigh as she watched "herself" run off, already knowing that this version of her wouldn't make it in time, nor would she be successful even if she were. "Yeah, that's not going to work."

She turned to face Summer - her mother. "Anyways, I recommend you get down there, and try to defuse the bomb that's attached to Penny's stomach. I think you're about the only one here that can do it given the state of panic everyone else is in. But before that, Summer? The one thing I didn't realize before was this. Maybe I'm the last Penny not because I fix everything, but because I died and there's no way I can come back. And if that happens, I just wanna let you know that I'm sorry. I'm sorry I got you mixed up in all this stupid stuff, even if indirectly. I'm sorry I wasn't a better girl - a better daughter - than the one Jacques Schnee ended up creating. I'm sorry for... well, for a lot of stuff."

Future-Penny gained a resolute expression. "If I do manage to come out of this okay, great. You and everyone else can throw me a party or something, but I'm not just going to stand around here talking if that keeps me from being down there and trying to protect my friends. I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees.

Summer, having to blink as she realized that Penny had referred to herself as her daughter, eventually gained a look of pride - even if this whole thing was rather confusing. "She truly is my daughter." She couldn't help but remark even as the android ran off to help her friends.

Raven's heart felt as if it were on fire as she rose higher into the sky. Lightning flew across the sky - unseen bits of electricity seering through the fallen robots, before a large jolt ran through her - restarting her pacemaker as it did. Once again, she thanked the gods for her aura: that maneuver wouldn't have even worked if she didn't have the ability to heal herself - but she also cursed herself for taking up smoking after Carla's death. She wouldn't have needed that pacemaker in the first place if it weren't for those two years dependant on tobacco. Between that and how expensive cigarettes were in general, she was glad that she had managed to kick the habit before she became the Branwen chieftess. "Alright, that's enough of that." She told herself, deciding that now wasn't the time to reflect on the past. "I've still got a family to keep safe."

Taiyang could only watch as his first wife ran off, before frowning, deciding that it was high time that he confront her about running off in the first place.

Meanwhile, Penny wasn't sure what to do. Any minute now, the bomb would go off, and at this rate, there wasn't a thing she could do to stop it before it was attached to her past self.

But just as Penny shut her eyes in anticipation, a marvellous thought came to mind. "Hey… I'll bet this works!" She exclaimed, running off to where the crazy temporal adventure took place. Scanning all the robots, she found that yes, there was a wireless transmitter on each of them, so maybe, just maybe…

Readying her swords, destroyed each and every one of the transmitters - after all, no signal, no explosion - with a carefully placed blast and then went off to hide. After what seemed like an eternity, she let out a sigh of relief as her past self and her friends vanished, sending them all through time and starting this whole thing over again. More importantly, though, the bombs had failed to go off. "Beacon is safe." She said with a grin. "Now all I need to do is get to the future and…" That was as far as she got before she felt herself being tugged elsewhere.

However, she couldn't help but smile. Wherever, or whenever, her friends were, whatever they did to jumpstart those bombs Luna told her about, it must have also reactivated the Sacred Timepiece she had given her digital friend, pulling her forward in time instead of sending her back. "I'm coming home, my friends." The android remarked.

Meanwhile, Weiss couldn't help but give a bitter chuckle: if someone had come to her a couple years ago and told her that she'd be watching a rabbit Faunus try and disarm a bomb using the computer in the middle of a cave, she'd have thought them insane. Here, though, she only had one concern on her mind. "How's it coming?" she directed at Velvet

The Faunus weaponsmith could only shake her head. "You want to know the truth? For the first time since I was ten, I don't have a clue about how to work the technology in front of me. If I had a day or two to study it, I might make some progress, but…"

"...we don't have a day or two," Taiyang finished with a sigh. "This is all my fault: if I hadn't lost my temper back at Beacon, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place."

"Ah, don't blame yourself," Raven declared with a sigh, remembering her earlier conversation with Summer, "I'm the one who took the choice of whether you wanted to spend your life protecting me out of your hands. I should have known that those pursuing me would have gone after you regardless of whether or not I stayed with you and the rest of our old team, with the rest of our family, but I spent far too much time focusing on my enemies instead of my allies. You would have just thrown caution to the wind and beat up any and all of the would-be assassins like the gutless cowards that they were."

"You're here now, and to me, that's all that matters, Mom," Yang remarked, giving a grin, "and just for the record, I'm referring to you too, Summer."

Ruby could only grin as Summer gave a tear-filled smile of pride, before gaining a curious expression. "Huh, I just realized. My sister's mom is my aunt. Not sure what to make of that."

Taiyang just snorted. "That you might be a Redneck? OW!"

Yang could only glare even as she lowered the arm she had used to dope smack her father. "You don't get to make jokes about this."

He winced. "You're right. There's a time and a place for that, and this isn't it...but more importantly, we need to have a talk."

Taiyang just sighed. "You were right earlier: I don't deserve to call out your mother, either of them, on leaving when I did something even worse. After Summer disappeared, I just...I didn't...no, couldn't see a reason for even trying to have a good handle on my emotions anymore. Ironically, you running off looking for Raven was the best thing for me. Qrow saving you and your sister from nearly getting eaten by Beowolves snapped me out of my funk and made me realize that I still had a family that needed me. That you and Ruby still needed a parent watching out for you. And while even I'll admit I wasn't always the best father, somehow I ended up with two great kids. I don't expect either of you to forgive me, but if you could somehow find it within yourself to not hate me...well, that would honestly be enough for me."

Ruby's response was to wrap the man in a hug. "For what it's worth, I never hated you."

Yang nodded as she joined in the hug. "I found a way to forgive my Mom: why shouldn't I do the same for my Dad?"

Raven could only give a shrug with a sheepish grin. "Not like I'm in any sort of position to lecture anyone on how to be a parent."

"If they aren't holding a grudge, then I won't either," Summer declared with a grin, before giving her husband a glare, "but you're still sleeping on the couch tonight."

Taiyang just sighed. "Yeah, that figures."

Weiss could only give a sigh of her own. "As long as we're handing out apologies, I'm sorry for what I said, Coco. Emotion scrabbler or not I should know by now that when the chips are down, your friends mean way more to you then your libido."

Coco could only give a melancholy nod. "Yeah, well, maybe you wouldn't have had a reason to doubt me if I had just read the room a bit better. I promise: next time, I'll be waiting until after our friends are out of danger before worrying about wetting my whistle. Speaking of apologies, though…"

"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there…" Velvet declared, briefly looking up from her work. "True, I was upset about how you were practically benching me in battle all the time, but until recently, I never said anything about it was bothering me. If I really wanted to participate, I should have made more of an effort to make it known."

"And we should have made more of an effort to get our honey bunny the chance to participate regardless," Yatsuhashi remarked, giving a quick kiss to his two lovers.

Fox simply nodded to Jaune. "Hey, sorry about calling you out about the dress. It really was brave. It's just that...well, I get enough grief about my lack of eyesight without people calling the armor I got pink every five minutes."

Pyrrha joined Jaune in a smile, before faking a confused expression/tone. "Pink? I wouldn't way it's pink. More of a… lightish red."

"Okay, now you're just messing with me," Fox said with a grin that said that he wasn't bothered too much by it. Oh, it still bothered him, but he wouldn't let his anger/irritation control him.

"Nice to see you guys are getting along," a newly arrived Penny declared, before blinking as all eyes turned to her, quickly making her realize that she had managed to both ruin the melancholy mood and interrupt their attempts to stop the bomb. Giving a sheepish smile, she said, "Uh, salutations?"

Ruby smiled and hugged Penny. "You're here! Good to know that if I die, I'll be dying beside you."

Penny gave a blush in response to this, reminding herself to talk to Ruby about what she'd learned in the past. She then blinked, realizing that she recognized the computer system in the room. With a smile, she declared, "Actually, I don't think we'll be dying after all." She calmly walks up to the computer council. "Salutations, Luna: how's it going?"

Luna quickly booted up and smiled at Penny. "Not bad, though I'm actually a bit curious: is it possible for AI units to get cramps, because I feel like I've got a pretty nasty one in my central processor after sitting around for so long."

Penny snorted. "Yeah, I'll be sure to have that looked at later, but for now, could you do me a favor and shut off the bomb?"

Luna nodded. "Certainly."

Ren blinked even as the bomb timer shut off. "What the...the computer could talk?"

Nora quirked an eyebrow. "The computer's name is Luna?"

Raven growled. "We could have had you shut off the bomb at any time?! Why didn't you just say so!?" She then blinked, before giving a sigh. "Wait: don't tell me…"

Luna somehow managed a teasing grin despite her lack of features. "You didn't ask."

Penny gave a chuckle, even as Raven couldn't help but give an irritated groan in response. "It's good to be back."

Yang smirked. "Well, somebody is in a good mood."

Penny shrugged. "What can I tell you? I learned a few things during my travels, though I'd say that the most important thing was to try and avoid stressing out about past mistakes. After all, as a wise man once said, 'The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift: that's why we call it the present.'"

Ruby smiled as she gave Penny a hug. "Then I'll be sure to give you plenty of stuff to be grateful for. ...though curious question: where have you been this whole time?"

Penny snorted. "Do you want the long or the short version?"

"Short, please," was Ruby's deadpan response.

Yang couldn't help but give a teasing grin. "Aw man: I really wanted to hear the long version; hey, do you think you could make it three chapters?"

"Maybe some other time," Penny declared, even as the doors to the outside opened up. "For now, I need to talk with Luna about getting us back to the past."

"Oh, my gods!" Blake screamed in horror, having spotted a few skeletons that lay on the other side of the door that definitely hadn't been there before. "Yang! I think she's right! I think we're in the future!"

Despite the shocking revelation, Yang didn't seem very interested. Instead, the blonde brawler's eyes seemed to be glued to the floor. "Yang?" Blake beckoned. "Did you hear me?"

"... uh, yeah. I did." Yang replied as her complection suddenly rivaled Weiss'. "But, uh… I think that either that futuristic hourglass or the trip to the future itself might have accidentally accelerated my biological clock a little bit or something like that."

"How can you tell?" Ruby couldn't help but ask.

"Because I'm pretty sure my water just broke…"

To Be Continued