Chapter 45: Penny
Thanks again to boothnat, who helped edit this chapter.
You can find her story The Traveler's Guide to Teyvat: How to not kill people - Chapter 1 - boothnat - 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) [Archive of Our Own] , on her AO3 page: boothnat | Archive of Our Own.
Fun fact about disasters- if you can outrun them, it's almost like they never happened.
The second, funnier, part of this fun fact comes when you stop running, and all the built-up weight of your cumulative fuckups catches up with you… all at once.
Quite fortuitously, Mr. S had proven to be something of an unintentional savant when it came to outrunning disasters.
How did he manage this feat?
Why, by creating more disasters, of course.
When the earthquake that was his reaction to Weiss's new girlfriend hit, he easily escaped- surfing away on the fortuitous tsunami of Blake's recently revealed White Fang affiliations.
And that tsunami, barely a day old, hardly managed to wet his tube socks before he was, once again, saved, by the sudden attempt on his life by Adam- which very cleanly drew away all attention from his previous inconsistencies.
Then, before anyone could manage to gather their breath, he was once-again implicated in a high profile terrorist attack on the dust palace.
He'd barely managed to dodge that bullet when he was saved, yet again, by another assassination attempt, as Raven and her posse of conspirators sent the city into lockdown.
But then, Mr. S made a mistake: he stopped.
This was quite unintentional- because, in the midst of his investigation, and in the afterglow of the glorious success that saw all the conspirators apprehended, Mr. S accidentally passed twelve whole hours without throwing the world into unrelenting chaos.
And a lot can happen in twelve hours, when certain minds are not preoccupied with dealing with the latest disaster.
Mrs. Schnee took a deep breath, unused to the extended period of sobriety Nannen had forced her to engage with.
"Ok - " Willow said, shutting her eyes, rubbing her temples, and cursing that she couldn't drink this hangover away " - what do you want?"
Nannen held out some collated reports and files, pushing them into Willow's line of sight.
Willow leaned back, shooting the papers a curious look.
"Forgive any perceived rudeness, madam," Nannen bowed, "but the necessities of the present situation were quite pressing. I simply couldn't wait for you to come to your senses on your own time."
Willow hardly reacted to the undercurrent of admonition in the words. It was something she'd learned to put up with, considering Nannen was one of the few people she could trust to put up with her.
"Just give it over," Willow said, shutting her eyes as another migraine hit and blindly reaching out an open hand. Nannen placed the files into her palm.
Willow's escapades into her "happy place", as she'd taken to calling them, could often last weeks. Unfortunately, they left her essentially blind to the general goings-on of the world. Nannen and the staff handled most of the regular procedures during these times, but as of late, the servants were beset by many irregular events And so, Willow was called upon to make a review of the situation. To be more specific, Nannen confiscated her wine collection.
The papers were a documented collection of all the recent irregularities. Many of these were quite technical in nature, involving stock derivatives and money transfers, but, in the end, the same general message got through:
"I am going to kill him," Willow said, sitting up with sudden sobriety, a surprising amount of softness in her words.
Willow was hardly alone in her sentiments.
At any given time, there were always people who wanted Mr. Schnee dead. Oh, their reasons for this sentiment differed, of course, but in the end their goals were the same. Ironwood, always a man of action, was the first of the pack to arrive in Schnee Manor.
His scroll had been confiscated by the council, who were, presumably, tearing it apart to find evidence relating to his recent 'phantom crimes'. As he marched along the Schnee Manor's hallways, Ironwood occasionally passed by a waiting room with a running projector screen- on which was, invariably, played out a rendition of the most recent in Atlas politics.
"...and what does he do?" Robin asked the gathered crowd. "Ironwood calls forth all Mantel police personnel to Atlas… and they are still in Atlas! The White Fang has made two escapades and they are still in Atlas! We have petitioned the council for aid, and they are still in Atlas! -"
Ironwood passed by the waiting room, and the words were soon out of earshot. Their implications were not so easily discarded, however.
As the foremost member of the Atlas council- with effectively two seats worth of power due to his position as general and civilian leader- Ironwood was always under a great deal of scrutiny. So it obviously did not bode well for his reputation when Jacques, by far his largest donor, stirred up the news by allowing a former member of the white fang into his household. Ironwood hardly blamed Jacques for that situation. In fact, he'd been one of the first people to defend Jacques- after all, how could he blame the man for ignorance.
But, then, the Adam attack happened, throwing a lot of shade onto Ironwood's previously stellar defense record.
And that had hardly been the end of it because, immediately after, Jacques, on his honor, managed to twist Ironwood's arm into parking the Atlas fleet over the secondary dust palace… just before Adam would conduct a raid that would destroy the green palace.
Oh, Jacques had managed to rather cleanly avoid any repercussions in the aftermath..
Ironwood... Ironwood had not been so lucky, and the spot where his scroll was supposed to be was currently burning a hole in his pocket.
Of course, Jacques, upon review of his most recent actions could, even in the most generous light, be considered to have acted carelessly.
Doing all of this, and then proceeding to detain a member of the Minstrel nobility - all while Ironwood was still suffering under an investigation that could end his career - and then refusing to release her? That was a travesty.
Doing all of this during election season was murder worthy!
He passed by another projector, and Robyn - one of the many candidates who were circling around his civilian council seat, now that they smelled blood in the water - what with all the recent, public investigations that were dragging James' reputation through the mud - was posing for the cameras, kissing a child. Flicking her scarf over a shoulder and turning a beaming smile into the gathered crowd, she spoke:
"This is a historic election for Mantle!" Robyn said, heartfelt tones taking her voice. "Make a plan to vote! And finally get some competence into Atlas…"
Her voice trailed off as Ironwood headed deeper into the castle.
It was strange; Ironwood clearly remembered that the Schnee manor had a white motif - yet, at that moment, all he was seeing was red.
Now, Ironwood wasn't planning to kill Jacques... he just didn't know what he was going to do when he found him-
"James!" Mr. S said, coming around the corner and turning a beaming smile onto Ironwood.
Mr. S held his arms out, stepping out of the tight crowd that Schwarz, team Juniper, and three quarters of team RWBY managed to form around him.
"Am I glad to see you!" Mr. S said, stepping forward, and dragging the crowd behind him as he approached Ironwood. "I really need your help," Mr. S said, with an earnest look. "I've got some conspirators, and I'd really appreciate it if you could convince the council to expedite this case for me."
Ironwood's fist was shaking. He tilted his head back at the audacity-
Schwarz then stepped up, and unloaded an avalanche of facts about the recent plot.
Now, Mr. S was curious about the assasination plot.
Who wouldn't be? After all- it had managed to kill Mr. Schnee.
Who were these mysterious, infinitely interesting, individuals? Why did they want Mr. Schnee dead?
"The group calls itself The One Ring, and it has secondary bases here, here, here, and here," Schwarz said, pointing to where the yellow triangles had been plastered onto the continental map. "These bases have no armor, and are lightly staffed, which explains their ubiquity in hostile regions. Likely, they are not indispensable, and the Black Hand are unlikely to host any sensitive files in them. But, this is exactly the type of base in which all the suspects admitted to receiving White Fang communiques, for likely the same reason."
"Are they with the White Fang?" Blake asked, peering intensely over Schwarz's shoulder at the mess of papers Schwarz was juggling.
"No," Schwarz answered, "they claim to be a successor organization to the Rings of Power, of the post revolutionary upheavals, but I believe they're actually founded by the-"
And, it was here Mr. S realized that, despite his earlier enthusiasm, he... really, really, didn't care about any of this. Who were these people? Why did they want him dead? It didn't matter! The way Schwarz was handling it, they were all going to be blown off the face of Remnant by next week, and Mr. S, much like everyone not named Ironwood, was rapidly losing interest in the subject matter.
Schwarz, however, caught up in expounding on her discoveries, hardly noticed the growing atmosphere of boredom. She colorfully recounted every detail she'd been able to deduce regarding the One Ring's leadership structure and logistical systems- all of it assembled, piece by piece, from the scattered admissions of the conspirators.
Just as Schwarz was getting to her recommendations regarding preventing similar, future, attacks, she was forced to stop as they arrived at the R&D lab. Everyone breathed a sigh of glorious relief, much to her genuine chagrin.
And, it was here that Ironwood decided to pick up where he'd left off, having unfortunately lost his enthusiasm for murder.
"Ok," he shook his head, compartmentalizing the information Schwarz had provided. "Just send it all to my office, we'll deal with it. But as for you-" he turned to Mr. S with a threatening glare, "do you have any idea how much you've cost me this past-"
"Oh Pyrrha, Mr. Schnee," Dr, Polendina called from the entrance to the operations room, "and friends," he added, inclining his head.
"Dr. Polendina?" Ironwood turned with a surprised whisper. "What are you doing here?"
"Why, fixing Penny of course," the man let out a hearty chuckle.
Dr. Polendina- in his usual manner- took great pleasure in delivering such portentous news so casually.
Ironwood was blown away.
Mr S was surprised by how much the news seemed to affect the man. He could have sworn he saw tears building up in his eyes.
Still, Ironwood was nothing without his composure, and he managed to keep enough of it to be debriefed.
"So… she's going to be fixed? You're sure?' Ironwood sat on a bench next to the lab entrance, resting his elbows on his knees, his head bowed.
Everyone formed a comfortable space around the tired general.
"We're certain," Dr. Polendina answered.
"How?"
"Well, like I said, it all started with Mr. Schnee," an uncomfortable laugh escaped Dr. Polendina, an artifact of his substandard lying ability. "He suggested something to me about making a dust-less scanner, and the R&D team and I were able to make something out of it."
"Why didn't you tell me this?" Ironwood said, looking over at Polendina, sounding almost angry at having been left out.
Pietro only laughed uncertaintly. "Well, for the initial stages, we were rushing to make the prototypes. By the time we thought to contact you, we were told that your scroll had been confiscated by the council, and that they were blacking out all attempts at communication during the…" again, he let out an uncomfortable chuckle, "investigation."
"You could've sent a messenger," Ironwood accused, turning his attention to Schwarz.
"We had to lock down the castle during the investigation," Schwarz explained. "That, and, we regarded the situation as tenuous enough that we needed all security personnel to be present in the Manor."
"How much did you spend?" Ironwood asked, looking to Pietro.
"I'm not quite sure, actually," Polendina said, turning to Mr. S for explanation.
Mr. S turned to Schwarz for explanation.
Schwarz answered. "Including the test objects, we spent just over 2.1 Billion Lien on the revival project."
Jaune whistled in appreciation, while the rest of the group - save Weiss and Pyrrha - boggled at the unrelentingly huge amount.
"I didn't even know there was that much money in the world," Nora whispered, a tinge of fear in her voice.
Mr. S wasn't too impressed, but then inflation may have had a flatter trajectory on this word, he supposed.
Ironwood, used to handling Atlas' defence budget, hardly batted an eyelash.
"I'll get the council to refund the expenditure," Ironwood said, standing up, "and don't worry about The One Ring, they've been on our radar for a while now. I don't expect them to stay there for long."
"Really, we couldn't ask you to stick your neck out-" Mr. S started.
"I don't have many people I'd consider allies, Jacques," Ironwood said. "And, to be honest, I've always wavered on where I put you in that regard." Ironwood suddenly took Mr. S's hand in a strong grip, and slapped a hand into the side of his opposite arm. "But, if you've brought Penny back, then I couldn't care less about what the council has to say. They'll fall in line."
Mr. S nodded, and matched Ironwood's steely gaze with his own.
They soon released each other, and, along with the rest of the group, turned to the laboratory.
Polendina led the way.
It was dark inside, lit only by the incidental lights of the various projectors and indicator lights that flashed intermittently on the various machines that hummed in the space.
"Come in! Come in!" Dr. Polendina gestured, pacing back in his chair and leading them deeper into the chamber. "Mind the wires," he warned, gesturing to the thick cabling that ran across the floor like a vine mat, and connected various, disparate machines that lined the walls.
Mr. S was taken aback by the sheer density of the machinery. The amount of equipment that had been crammed into this small room was- impressive.
And he was surprised, most of all, by how cool it was in the room. All of these machines, in such an isolated space - all of them apparently running - and, unlike in every other, similarly formatted room, Mr. S had been in on earth, it wasn't baked by a dry, electrical heat. Score one for ice dust, he supposed, resolving to forgive the thermodynamic conundrums the concept had at first elicited in him.
All of those musings escaped him, however, when he saw the centerpiece.
Penny, in advance of the surrounding darkness, stood in a cylindrical container. It encased her body in metal; the insides were filled with a thick, velvet, lining, and the front covered her in the glare of the cylindrical glass that capped the structure.
A reverential silence fell over the group as they stared at the silent figure.
Mr. S was distinctly aware of the context he was missing. Looking at all of them, as they looked at the body: the scene brought to mind an open casket funeral.
But, more eerie than that, was the silence.
Penny… was not as she'd been in their recent memories: not the blackened, metal, skeletal thing that served only to remind them of death.
No, Penny had a new body, now, which stood on display, and seemed to be sleeping behind the glass front of its container. She looked peaceful.
Ruby excitedly went over to the container, nearly pressing her face to the cylindrical glass as she looked through.
"Is that Penny?" she asked, slight confusion murmuring her words, for the new body didn't look much like the old Penny, either.
"No, not Penny," Pietro corrected, "Zama."
Ruby turned a corrective look onto the man, and all of them except Ironwood, Schwarz, and Mr. S held confused looks as they stared at the figure.
Her skin was dark, and her hair was pitch black, and curled about her face. Her features were overall sharper and more defined than they'd been.
A moment of silence passed, and Pietro found a dozen stares directed onto him.
He sighed.
"Zama," he gestured to the sleeping body, "was the new model Atlas commissioned after Penny had been deemed... unsalvageable." He eased the words, sparing cushioning looks at Pyrrha. "We knew that someone had knowledge of the Penny project, and that someone had apparently the means to arrange for her destruction, which is why they apparently targeted poor Ms. Nkos with that illusory semblance."
"You're trying to hide her," Schwarz deduced. "Would that not have gone against the original intention of the Penny Project? As I recall, she was meant to be a rather public figure for Atlas."
"Priorities have changed," Ironwood said, tiredly. The collected regrets of month's of worrying seemed to mold his face into an effigy of weariness. "Penny- Zama, is meant to undergo a longer period of obscurity, before she is revealed to the world. We need, most of all, to keep her safe… obviously, our precautions last time were insufficient."
"So, she has to look different because we don't want the bad guys to know she's alive again, but, she'll still be… Penny, right?" Ruby asked, a worried scrunch to her eyes.
"Haha, of course she will," Polendina laughed. "She'll be the same Penny you remember, even her body is the same, on the inside! The changes we made are purely cosmetic"
That seemed to comfort the group, but then Polendina glanced, nervously, at Ironwood.
It wasn't much of a look, but it was meaningful for all that it was brief.
But the group's happiness was brittle- hidden within it was the paranoid fear that, at any moment, their hopes could be dashed and taken away, proven to be too optimistic from the start.
And they were on edge as a result of this, keen to find any discrepancy in Dr. Polendina's actions.
"What is it?" Ironwood asked.
"Well, actually," Polendina started. "We have, recently, found some minor damage to Penny's central computer."
The entire room seemed ready to faint.
"It's barely even there!" he hastened to assure them. "It's completely repairable, and the fact that it even took us this long to notice is a good thing. I don't expect anything to come of it, but…"
"But?" Ironwood asked.
"Well, in order to revive Penny, we took her central computer and replaced it with the one originally slated to go into Zama," he gestured as a crystalline looking Brain, which was held inside a small iron box stacked onto one of the shelves. The box was lined with velvet, and came with it's own interior lights; and the crystalline brain, with it's jagged expressions, seemed to reflect hallucinatory colors out into the world.
"There is a small chance," Pietro continued, "that the damage could have some minor effect on Penny's behavior. And, as a member of the council," he gestured to Ironwood, "it is my duty to let you know, beforehand, of the relevant risks. However small those risks may be."
"You know that doesn't affect my decision," Ironwood said seriously, looking down at the man.
"Yes, but the rest of the council may feel differently," Pietro answered. "If they found out-"
"Do they know you've managed to repair Penny?" Ironwood asked.
"No," Polendina shook his head, "you're the only people that know." He looked around him at the small group.
"Then the council doesn't need to know, do they?" Ironwood said. "As far as they're concerned, we woke up Zama today, and Penny was never repaired."
There was a still moment at that. Although, the general feeling was relief, as everyone comforted themselves with the fact that it had been Ironwood to make that decision.
"I'll… let the staff know of the new decree," Schwarz said.
"Will any of the conspirators be likely to rat us out?" Ironwood asked.
"Only Schnee servants were present for Penny's memory disk transfer," Schwarz assured, "the conspirators were entirely third parties."
"Good..." Ironwood said, nodding, "good; then we can revive her today."
"What about Zama?" Mr. S asked suddenly, confused, looking over at the crystal computer, which sat glowing in its metal box on one of the shelves.
It was a very strange thing that happened next.
Mr. S was met with an uncomfortable silence. Everyone looked at the box- then back at him- and then, without a word, returned to their earlier conversation, to planning for Penny's return.
If he hadn't seen it himself, Mr. S would have sworn that they genuinely forgot his words in the interval between his speaking them and them continuing on as if they hadn't heard.
"Let me do it!" Pyrrha begged.
Once they'd reached the aura transfer lab, and plugged Zama - as they'd learned to refer to her around the technicians - into the receiving port, the donor port stood as an empty cavern to them all - it was inviting and held a vaguely sinister aura, as it beckoned to them.
Pietro had been the first person to give his aura to a robot, and doing so a second time, everyone feared, would kill him.
Ironwood held himself back from offering.
His prosthetic was formed into a tight fist with the effort of it, and it creaked under the weight of ifs frustration. He… was Atlas's general, first and foremost, and he was not as free, as others, to risk himself in such a manner.
Still, he couldn't help looking at Pyrrha with pride as she argued with the good doctor.
"I have two auras inside of me!" she challenged. "I have two semblances. I'm the one most qualified to be doing this!"
"Pyrrha," Pietro held up a calming hand. "The aura transfer technology… it's still experimental. We've only tested it at low energies. The only reason I was a qualified donor is because of my low aura levels. You have an abnormally large amount of Aura, even before you consider Amber's reserves. We have no idea what could happen if we try to load the machine with so much energy."
"Is there any chance Zama can be harmed as a result of the energy overload?" Pyrrha asked.
Pietro hesitated, though not from a matter of ignorance. "No," he said at last, "the receiving port is like a capacitor, in both senses of the term. It loads electrical and aura energy into a battery, and it won't begin the transfer process until both are ready."
"Then I'll do it," Pyrrha declared.
"Pyrrha-" Jaune stepped forward, followed by Nora, who held an equally worried look in her eyes, and by Ren, whose mood ring was glowing purple.
"Pyrrha," Pietro stepped forward with a metallic clang, trying to placate the girl, "I'm not certain what will happen to you if you step into that machine. You could be crippled for life, maybe even killed!"
"Is my chance of death greater or lesser than the median death rate in the wasteland?" Pyrrha asked, recalling to memory the benchmark by which all hunters measured themselves.
Pietro's indignant silence answered her.
"Is my chance of death or injury greater or lesser than yours would be if you stepped into that machine?" Pyrrha accused, looking directly at him now.
Pietro could only offer silence, in response to that.
"Pyrrha-" Jaune stepped forward again, a pleading expression in his tone.
"We're hunters," Pyrrha interrupted. "I'm a huntress," she repeated, as if affirming that fact to herself. "I've never believed for an instant that I would go my whole life as one without risking something. I know I can die; but death is an option for us… for me. That's just something we have to accept. And if I do die, then I'd be happy to die doing this."
Team Juniper stepped back, and Pietro stepped forward, interrupted by Ironwood, who came forward, and stood before her, and took Pyrrha earnestly by the shoulder.
"You can't," he said, looking into her eye with cold finality. "I know you want to. Trust me, I know how desperately you want to. But, you're the Fall Maiden, Pyrrha, and you're not as free to risk your life as I know you're brave enough to do."
"I'll be sure to think of Nora, or whatever candidate you have for the next fall maiden," Pyrrha answered coldly.
"We don't know if that will work," Ironwood said sternly. "It could just as well seek out its other half."
"Is there any chance I will die instantly?" Pyrrha asked.
"...no," Ironwood answered.
Clang!
Pyrrha's harness fell to the ground with a harsh reverberation, revealing the undershirt she wore under it as she walked to the donor machine.
"Then put me in a coma," Pyrrha said, slipping off her greaves and neatly laying them on a table beside the aura transfer device, next working onto her belt.
The technicians left the room, and Mr. S, along with all of the remaining adults, hovered around the extreme edge of the room, trying to give Pyrrha some space as she spent her last moments speaking with her friends.
Mr. S was frankly shocked at what he'd just witnessed.
That girl- Pyrrha, the way she was talking about death hit him like an ice bath, and the reactions of those around him seemed to be just as absurd.
The adults around him were talking about her, but more about how they'd handle the various contingencies of her revival if anything went awry.
Her friends, on the other side of the room, were calm, if a bit somber, even joking about with one another, on the rare moments when one of them could be caught cracking a smile.
What was going on!?
He looked down again at the risk chart in his hand- hoping to calm himself with another check of the numbers.
There had been many aura transfer experiments conducted before this one, and the numbers were clear.
Pyrrha was… relatively safe.
And if one discounted permanent injury, and only looked at the chances of death… she was actually safer than most texting … she hadn't even asked about the chances before leaping into the charge. And none of the adults seemed to even care about the fact that they'd have her death on their hands if things went wrong! Oh, it was unlikely, but- Heck, did Ironwood even care about her life? - His main argument against her proposal was the potential loss of the fall maiden!
But, then, Mr. S took a closer look back at the children.
And he decided right then that he'd stop calling them children.
Yes, they were immature, and dressed themselves in gaudy colors, and said immaturity had almost gotten him killed. Yes, they had a tendency to burst into tears, but… the way he saw them now, as they surrounded their friend... None of them had asked her to reconsider. None of them dared to question the fact that this was her choice. They were just content to put on a strong face, and to think well of what were, quite possibly, their final moments together.
They didn't look happy- the occasional smile he saw vanished within moments, but their expressions told more of fatalistic acceptance than despair.
Weiss, with one of the harsher looks in the region, made a comment Mr. S couldn't make out, eliciting a round of easy chuckles throughout the group.
They were handling this better than he was, Mr. S realized, and for the first time he grew to appreciate what a vast gulf there had been, all this time, between him and the people of this world.
What were the people of Remnant up against, Mr. S wondered, to have created children who behaved like this?
He started to worry very much, again, about the white fang, as well as of the shadowy backers who had driven the group to such heights.
Soon, the room had been evacuated. Everyone except for Pyrrha, her friends, as well as the group of adults Mr. Schnee had entered the room with, had been asked to leave.
The technicians had gone, but two extra arrivals now made their presence known in the operations room.
The operations room was a flat, plain box of a room, highlighted by the two pods of the aura transfer device that sat near the far wall, as well as by a rising, curved shelf of buttons, switches, and dazzling screens that controlled the device. The shelf - for all that it was several dozen feet long - was low, and - except for the occasional antenna - rarely breached above hip level.
So, minimalist as it was, it provided no hindrance to Mr. S, as he ran his eyes across everyone else that had remained in the room.
Mr. S was, along with the majority of the spectators, was standing against the upper walkway that ran halfway up the back wall, giving them an overview of the operations on the ground floor, where Dr. Polendina, Dr. Erskine - a world expert on aura transfer - and Winter stood.
The two doctors patrolled along the curving shelf, keeping a close eye on the various indicators and dials. Winter stood further back, almost directly below the walkway; her hands were held behind her back in a familiar waiting gesture as she observed the proceedings. On the Walkway, above Winter, Mr. S stood gripping the cool metal railing, Schwarz by his side, and surrounded by the curious eyes of the teenagers.
Schwarz shifted suddenly, and pointed to a change in one of the indicator dials.
"That means they're ready to start," she whispered, just loud enough for all of them to hear.
They all nodded, staring unabashedly at the far end of the room.
There, Penny - Zama, they all corrected themselves - was in the reception tank. They could see her face through the small square of glass which adorned the tank's metal frame.
Pyrrha was just getting into hers- having spent the past several hours patiently waiting as she was fitted to it. The reception unit opened up around her like an armored coffin, with three metal panels hinged open around her like a metal flower.
"Ready units!" Pietro yelled.
"Readying!" Dr. Erskine replied, gripping a large, metallic dial - taking the handle in his fist - and slowly turning it with visible effort.
In time with this motion, Pyrrha's unit moved into the vertical position; metal clamps fell closed around her limbs, and the three hatches closed around her, fitting together like puzzle pieces.
For a moment she was completely concealed by metal, before the top hatch fell into place around her upper body, and the small, square window that decorated it fell into position around her face.
She sent an easy smile up at the walkway, and everyone around Mr. S fell into a commotion of silent cheering, sending encouraging looks and thumbs up in the girl's direction.
"Pyrrha, are you ready?" Erskine asked. The man had a deep accent- to Mr S, it sounded… German? Yet somehow, he sounded soft and sympathetic.
"I'm ready!" Pyrrha said, her smile vanishing as she sobered up.
"Begin procedure!" Dr. Polendina yelled.
"Beginning procedure!" Dr. Erskine repeated.
In time with each other, the two doctors inserted their personal keys into opposite ends of the curved shelf and turned.
The room went dark as they did this. A dazzling collage of dials waved and lights blinked across the surface of the shelf, confused and without pattern.
As this went on, Schwarz directed their attention to one particular section of the shelf. There, in the center, what looked like a large, red, watch face took up enough real-estate to rent Tokyo. Even from this distance, Mr. S had no trouble making out the aerospace, white, writing that marked the edges of the watch face. They were percentages, Mr. S realized, after a cursory look: from 0 to 100. A white dial lay dead at the 0 marker, and it seemed almost ominous to Mr S.
He was excited now to get this over with, an it was a very nervous sort of excitement that prompted the emotion, making him wonder when it would finally begin.
Several passing minutes of preparation were his answer. How long was it going to take these doctors to start? An impatient grumble went through the crowd around Mr. S. Apparently, he wasn't the only one feeling nervous.
At last, relief came, however, in the form of Dr. Polendina's yelling voice.
"Continue Procedure!" Dr. Polendina yelled.
"Continuing Procedure!" Dr. Erskine repeated, and, taking two steps into the interior clicked a small, chrome, switch which, at first glance, seemed almost incidental to the whole structure of the shelf space.
First glances could be deceiving, Mr. S realized, as the room started to shake.
They all looked around for a confused moment but then, following Schwarz's gaze, looked up at the roof, which was parting.
At first, it was only a small sliver of sky that peeked through the two, thick partitions of the roof that- with a mechanical whirr so deep it rattled the steel - were slowly receding into the side walls. Soon, the parting sections of roof revealed a thin vista between them, shaded blue by the night sky above. Cold air sank heavily into the room with surprising energy, whistling through the widening partition, and set everyone's clothes buffeting in the sudden wind that took the space. The moon peeked, intermittently, between the traveling packs of clouds that seemed to be swimming through the stars. Eventually, after another, long moment - the two sections of roof had fully retracted into the walls, and the room was left sitting in the open air, as noted by the rather chilly wind that blew down to fill the space.
Again, there was a terse silence, and Pietro turned to look at Pyrrha's capsule.
"Pyrrha! Are you-"
"I'm ready!" she yelled through the plate glass, anxiety chasing her words.
Pietro nodded solemnly.
"Proceed!" he yelled.
"Proceeding!" Dr. Erskine yelled, trying to be heard in the downward gust of wind, which had picked up pace as it fell through the former roof. He took in his hand another dial, and, with even more apparent effort, began twisting it. Immediately, Pyrrha's capsule lit up like a jewel. A brilliant, white light flooded out through the square of plate glass, expanding to fill the the room and causing the more inexperienced among the group to lift a hand up to protect from themselves the glare.
Mr. S couldn't bring himself to look away.
Was this an aura?
His eyes were wide, and shone with reflected light as, for the first time, he was in a position to appreciate the special wonder of the new world around him. This… what he was observing right now… it was something very few people in the history of Remnant would ever see. And he wasn't even from Remnant... And what an amazing thing this was, he realized, as he gripped more tightly onto the railing, and felt the strange light wash over everything around him.
"Proceed with the progression procedure!" Dr. Polendina ordered.
"Proceeding!" Dr. Erskine bellowed. He turned the dial further, keeping a close eye on the red watch-face, as it's white dial moved around in turn.
Mr. S, too, was keenly fixed onto the deal as it reached the first landmark- ten percent.
The plate glass on Pyrrha's capsule increased in strength.
"Twenty Percent!" Dr. Erskine yelled.
Again, somehow, it seemed to find new levels of brightness to reach, yet it remained as inviting as a firefly; as the white light started to fill the room. Stark shadows stretched behind the rising shelf, growing into a dark inversion of the crescent moon.
In the shadow of the night side of the shelf, the red watch face was glowing, and the dial - glowing white - was smoothly rising to thirty percent. And the brightness of the window screen increased further, and the darkness was driven away, except for where the shadows took hold.
"Fourty Percent!"
Still, the brightness increased, and Mr. S felt the backs of his eyes starting to tingle now, and the back wall behind Pyrrha's unit, previously shrouded in darkness, now started to flicker with the reflected light of the rest of the room.
The dial, white and distorted in the light, was now pointing north, at the fifty percent mark.
This was the greatest increase in brightness yet and, looking at the Back Wall, Mr. S couldn't have told you if the lights had turned back on or not, were it not for the missing roof.
"Sixty Percent!" The doctor yelled, with growing anxiety.
Apparently, this was a precarious moment, and everyone could feel it: a sudden, intense, heat filled the space. It didn't appear to have any source, it just appeared everywhere, all at once, and Mr. S felt himself shocked by the sudden change in temperature; it felt as if an oven had been turned on around the room. By the time it reached seventy pecent, the heat began to grow uncomfortable.
Waves distorted the air, and rose up into the sky, escaping through the nonexistent roof. A falling current of cooler air, fell into the room to replace it, but hardly seemed to reach ground level before it was intently dried and heated by the baking light.
And Pyrrha screamed.
It was a shocked, painted scream of someone who had been holding in their pain. It was the scream of someone who was staggering from an injury. Death sparked into everyone's thoughts with a horrible expression.
"Shut it off!" Jaune yelled, eager to jump across the railing, and only held back by the sudden grip Nora and Ren took on either of his arms.
"Proceed with shutoff!" Polendina yelled shortly, looking across to the other end of the shelf, where Dr. Erskine suddenly lunged to input the shutoff sequence.
Pyrrha's voice, again, stopped him, however.
"No!" She yelled, her voice distorted by the light, face obscured by the brightness. "Don't stop!" she pleaded, voice filling the room. "I can take it!"
Dr. Erskine froze, and looked to Dr. Polendina.
Yet- even Dr. Polendina seemed indecisive.
And then, after a moment- they nodded to each other.
"Proceed," they both said, in solemn unison.
"Pyrrha!" Dr. Erskine said, with his still kind words. "We are going to continue, but will increase the power at a slower rate. This should be less liable to shock your system. Do you understand me!"
"I understand!"
And they continued, in terse silence, and in obvious anxiety.
"Eighty Five Pecent!" came after a long moment of waiting. The voice was tentative that spoke it. And for good reason, because, as the brightness increased, and the power-draw with it, a sudden spark and crash showered Penny's unit with sparks.
Everyone, looking to Penny's unit, had kept a close eye on the two growing bars that highlighted the object.
A white stack of light bars indicated the aura capacitor, and that was fine.
The blue stack measuring the electrical store, however, was blinking down and rapidly dying.
"Proceed with shut off!" Pietro yelled.
"No!" Pyrrha interrupted.
"We have no power! We couldn't transfer if we wanted to!"
"How much!?" Pyrrha yelled.
"What?!" Pietro yelled, finding his words stolen by the sudden, powerful, wind that had kicked up in the space. The heat that had been building up dissipated in a wisp and icy blasts hammered down into the room. Light speckles of rain started to fall just and everyone looked up; billowing clouds, and spiraling storms that grew over them with enormous portent. A spark of lightning flashed between two areas of the suddenly thick cloud cover, filling the heavens with blue light and grey shadows.
"How much power do you need!?" Pyrrha yelled back, nervous anxiety powering through the winds.
"Ten Million Volts! Fifteen Thousand Amps!' The two doctors replied in hurried unison.
And the heavens delivered.
Immediately, a streak of lightning exploded into space, connecting the sky and Penny's capsule. It danced in place- filling the room with building thunder.
The noise was extreme. It was pointless to speak now, and the two doctors went back into frenzied work.
Mr. S, as well as most of the group, forced themselves to look away from the sight. The spectacle dearly reformed their opinions on the meaning of the word "bright."
C type lightning dust, as used in most capacitors, could accept a charge from any electrical source. In this way, it was very versatile. It could, however, be very difficult to manage, as everyone present was learning. The dancing lightning bolt started to waver, contorting in the air, and nearly reached out to the shelf space with its frenetic steepling.
TXCH!
Suddenly the lightning stilled, and hummed blue, turning into a perfect cylinder of humming blue -mixing with the white of Pyrrha's capsule and seeming almost like a neon light, with how regularly it now beamed into the air.
Winter approached, ramrod straight, one hand held behind her back, and another held out to the spectacle. The lightning grew ever calmer, and ever stiller, with every, slow step she took towards Penny's capsule.
The watch face raced past the ninety percent mark, and the heat briefly peaked, before the pouring wind stole it away.
By now, the dial, brightly flashing, reached one hundred percent.
Zama's capsule hummed and the lights blinked like fireworks as the plate glass' brightness, for a shining moment, started to overtake the lightning.
In a flash, both the capacitors, now at full charge, released their payloads, and an explosion of light flashed forth from the glass plate of Penny's capsule. For a moment, it seemed that light took over the world, and then- it vanished.. The lightning was gone now, as was the glow from Pyrrha's own capsule, and the world seemed eternally dark in the aftermath of the lightshow. A pale, insubstantial rain pattered down from the open rooftop, and the light sound seemed to have greater prominence in the colorless, grey surroundings that greeted them.
Mr. S released a long, weary breath he didn't know he'd been holding, letting it out into the chaotic, untempered, air that now breezed through the world - the only sensation Mr. S was aware of, as his thunder battered ears rang, and his eyes struggled to adjust.
Mr. S could hardly make out the shelf, even as it sparkled with new and brilliant lights.
Slowly, Pyrrha's capsule returned to its horizontal position, the hinged panels lifting off of it, and leaving an exhausted - though otherwise unharmed - Pyrrha panting in it's interior. In the dim light, the eclectically colored dials of the shelf reflected off her sweat slicked form. She fell out of her capsule, into Winter's supporting grasp. And she walked, tired, and greatly relying on the supporting shoulder Winter offered her. Soon, they were in the central space. A rush of motion engulfed Mr. S, as all of the students around him leapt over the railing and landed onto the floor, rushing to their friend, only stopped by the warning hand Winter reached out in their direction.
"Give her space," the elder Schnee sister advised.
Mr. S, along with Ironwood and Schwarz, had just reached the bottom of the stairs when Pyrrha yelped in surprise.
Everyone looked at her.
Pyrrha, however, already feeling well enough to stand under her own power, turned immediately to face Penny's capsule.
The remaining capsule hissed with pressured seals and turned into the horizontal. In time with this turn, its own panels spread apart, revealing the sleeping body inside as, at last, Zama came into view.
"Penny!" Pyrrha yelled, wanting to go forward- but fearing to take a single step, as she saw the unresponsive repose the robot maintained.
"Is- is she alive?" Pyrrha asked, looking hesitantly over at the doctors.
They didn't respond, lost in their rush as they hurriedly operated the shelf.
"Is she alive?" she asked again, sounding lost, and seeking to find some sort of structure in the repetition.
The doctors were not looking at their instruments now, however, and instead turned an intense focus on the cold body. Following their lead, everyone else did the same. And several moments passed in this waiting silence before, with just a twitch, Zama's right arm made to move.
"She's alive!" Pyrrha yelled joyously, hopping in place and neatly clapping with just her wrists.
"She's alive!" she repeated, answering her own question in duplicate.
She made to run over, but was stopped immediately by Winter's outstretched arm. "She's still running her start up procedures," she warned with terse efficiency. "Don't disturb her."
Pyrrha paused, looking up at Winter and, turning back to the robot, nodded solemnly.
The next few minutes passed quietly as Penny booted up her internal processes.
Then, without thought or forethought, her eyes opened, and a clatter of noise went throughout the room.
In the corner of his vision, Mr. S saw the nearby table, which held Pyrrha's greaves as well as a dozen other pieces of metal equipment,… move.
But it didn't just move... everything on it seemed to... shift, as if a hundred invisible hands had nudged every, individual piece of metal in the room… the pushes radiating away from some central point that was too distant to discern. A sudden pressure caused Mr. S looked down- at where the metal broach in his coat pocket had been pressed against him. He looked at Pyrrha, who suddenly basked in everyone's undeferred attention. Her figure was visible in the darkness, but her expression was hidden.
"I didn't do that," she said, dispelling the slight confusion, as she, along with everyone else, turned their eyes to the next most likely suspect.
Zama was floating now, soundlessly in the air, hanging upright as if supported by invisible strings. Her eyes were wide open- glowing a dark, muddy red. The red of her eyes was like the red of open flesh, and it stood out starkly against the deep black of her skin, which faded into the dark shadows of the overcast night.
"Penny?" Pyrrha braved, taking half a step forward.
"Initiating startup procedure." The robot's lips moved in smooth unison with her new voice, which was richer than her old, and carried a double tenor that hinted at an echo in the darkness.
Immediately after saying the words, her shoulders made a hint at shrugging and she - with precise, minute motions - flexed her wrists- testing their range of motion, and then her elbows, ankles, and shoulders- she even took a moment to walk in place, unheeding of the precarious hover she was maintaining. And then her back opened up, and six blades floated into the air around her, glowing with dark red highlights. Thin wires hung slack between her Blades and her body, noticeable by the thin film of red light that reflected off of them, giving them the appearance of arcs of light.
SCHING!
A chorus of switchblades screamed against their ears, causing the gathered crowd to cringe back as all the blades unfolded with an explosive motion, opeming up around the figure like razor petals. And then the blades, slowly, moved out - drifting away on fanning paths. In response to this motion, the curved lines that connected them to the body grew taut. They started to vibrate, as great forces pulled and tugged at them with immense force.
TZANG!
A strange, tearing, ripping, slashing, curring sound ran through one of the red lines - its broken remnant vibrated like a guitar string.
TZANG!
Another wire screamed, as it's blade tore itself away, and it was plucked soundlessly from the body.
TZANG!
And another, and another, and another. In time and in order, the remaining blades tore themselves away from the deadening wires.
All the wires plucked themselves away from the body, and they were torn away from the remnants of the blades, and were crushed into a tight - faintly reflective - net above the still floating body.
The Blades, now freed of their encumbering wires, danced quickly around their new master, whose senseless eyes stared unknowingly out into the world before them.
"Penny?"
Phyrra's body, now more visible in the dim red of the robot's light, leant forward worriedly.
At last, the Blades calmed, and they returned to their rest position around the floating body, once again presented as a fan of blades arcing over it.
"Penny?" Pyrrha asked again, squeezing her hands together in front of her chest with worry.
Red eyes swiveled to look at her.
"Pyrrha," the bored, double-tenor voice answered - a hint of recognition in it.
"Penny!" Pyrrha cheered with sudden joy, lifting her hands up into the air. "You have no idea how much I missed you!" she yelled with breathless hope.
"No," the voice denied, "your aim was quite accurate."
And, faster than the eye could see, one of the Blades flickered forward to hit Pyrrha in the chest, and sent her crashing into the far wall of the estate.
