Chapter 46


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.


Schwarz activated her semblance. Light flickered wildly- distorting into a strobe apparition that enveloped the room so that it seemed to be simultaneously as bright as day and enveloped in darkness. A strange electric buzz began to echo, switching at random between being painfully loud and barely audible.

And this feeling was replicated fully in every one of their auras.

Ruby threw up.

Zama fell like an iron weight, sending subtle tremors through the bedrock as she landed. Her six blades clinked uselessly onto the floor beside her, lights dying.

The next moments were of action. Winter shot forth an ice cloud, Ironwood charged, Pyrrha cried out for peace, and Schwarz drew her weapons, keeping close guard on Weiss and company who, under the influence of her semblance, had taken to wobbling and passing out.

Zama jumped.

She passed through the open ceiling; the vast expanse of the Manor roof came into view, descending below her as she rose in a high arc over its starlit surface.

The night was clear to her eyes. Off in the distance, the landing pads glimmered with indicator lights. Behind her, the open trench that was the aura transfer lab receded away from her. She noted with some dispassion that her swords and strings had been left, abandoned, on its floor. She was glad to be rid of them, though, and she could feel her ascension stalling as she reached the crest of her leap.

By now, she was several dozen feet above the manor roof, flying forward on the shallow arc she'd set herself upon.

The pristine concrete of the roof raced below her, and she felt herself drawing closer to it as gravity reasserted its grip on her body- slowly, at first, but gathering pace as the seconds ticked by, so that, soon, she felt the wind chilling her- so fast was it streaming over her skin; and, very soon after that, she was inches away from the oblivious concrete- streaming down towards it at incredible speeds.

And here, Zama activated her second semblance- her previous one.

A familiar block clacked against her insides and shifted gears, and, suddenly, she felt gravity's hold on her collapse, and suddenly, it were as if she was in Physics 101. Air resistance didn't matter, acceleration didn't matter, and whoever was grading the test just really didn't care that everything was stubbornly flying along on paths of constant motion.

Gravity was rather indifferent about her sudden stubbornness to be accelerated. It was a universal force, after all- so what, if this one robot resisted its charms? What did it care?

The roof, on the other hand, cared just a little bit more, and exploded into shrapnel as Zama crashed through it's brittle surface like a bullet.

And Mrs. Schnee, who was just under the roof- she cared the most.


Mrs. Schnee had been walking through the halls thinking about… well, she couldn't remember what she'd been thinking about, actually, but it seemed somehow less important now that her heart was attempting to tunnel its way through her chest.

It wasn't often that Willow Schnee engendered a reputation for caring about, well, anything, much less the immediate present. But, perched as she was on a floating glyph, watching with wide eyes as the roof collapsed and the shattered floor fell in upon itself, she took a heightened moment to recognize that- were it not for her excellent dodging skills, that strangely humanoid artillery piece would have landed on her!

Said artillery piece came more clearly into view when, several levels down, through the dust and the broken floors, the rubble shifted and Zama stood calmly over the calamity, red eyes shining diffusely through the fog of rock dust that hung in the air.

"You! Stop!" Mrs. Schnee commanded, pointing down at the standing figure.

Zama sprinted off, disappearing into the inner levels of the castle.

Nobody ever listened to her, Mrs. Schnee lamented.


Farbe was wrapped in her travel cloak, dressed today as a messenger girl.

As a messenger girl, she was one of the only members of staff allowed to exit the castle during lockdown; one could tell by the speckled drops of wetness that soaked the upper portions of her cloak- hinting at the rains she'd been caught walking through in the outside world. Still, she blended in very well with the castle staff, despite the unusual ease with which she seemed to handle the call of the distant warning sirens. As everyone around her panicked and looked for easy shelter, she hardly noted the disturbance, easily swimming through the dispersing crowds.

Having just delivered a very important package, she stepped out of the Manor's mail room with a jaunty smile, content as she looked down at her watch. Ah, right, it was almost time for her scheduled tutoring session with that Rose girl she'd been introduced to.

She was far down the hall, just turning the corner, when she saw a dark blur sprint out from a left alleyway- crossing the hall, and disappearing into the mailroom. There was a loud commotion followed, silenced quickly by the red flash that preceded the explosion.


Time was of the essence, and everybody's thoughts seemed slow against it.

Pyrrha's shirt was heavy with blood, and she felt herself growing cold, painfully cold, as a trickle of crimson droplets sapped out from the bloody cloth. Heavy, red beads dripped into the crimson pool that rippled on the warm tiling beneath her. Every now and then, another cold gust came through the nonexistent roof, accompanied by icy droplets of smattering rain that dripped onto her skin like needles.

Blake had been the first to reach her.

Hard bandages were manipulated deftly in Blake's hands as she treated the gash in Pyrrha's chest without any of the stumbling inexperience that plagued most hunters Pyrrha had seen in the mandatory first response courses at Beacon.

It paid to have friends with an insurgency background, Pyrrha joked, and laughed at her own quip and winced at the pain her laughter induced.

Blake told her to shut up, and tapped gently at the bandages she'd set over Pyrrha's clavicle, trying to judge the severity of the gash. Pyrrha's aura had taken the brunt of it, she concluded- not that she'd had much aura left, after the transfer.

During all of this, in the seconds after Penny's departure, the room was a mess of chaos, incomprehensible to Pyrrha's increasing light headedness. Friends crowded worriedly around her, crouching in a distant semicircle Blake forced them to adhere to. Their voices were unbounded; overlapping queries about Pyrrha's status and well wishes crowded into the space about her.

Compounding all of this, the rain had started to pick up, and a hard wash of waterfall clattered throughout the room, as fast droplets hit against hard tile, and the pitter patter of raindrops echoed sharply off the stone-lined walls.

Schwarz was yelling into her scroll.

And Ironwood and Pietro and Erskine and Mr. S, they were all notable for their silence, as they stood around the aura transfer pods still, engaged in each their own thoughts.

All of this chaos came crashing to a halt, however, when Schwarz turned softly towards Ironwood, and asked the quiet words:

"General," Schwarz started in a quick, hard voice, meant to convey as much decorum as the short time would permit, "I have instructed my security team to use lethal force. I am not asking for your permission, but, as this is an Atlas Military project, I do see the need to inform you of the fact. That, and I-"

Schwarz had meant to ask the man to give his word of statement on the matter- in order to waylay any future accusations of sabotaging national interests. However, she never managed to finish her sentence before the room exploded into absolute chaos.


Weiss was terribly worried, and afraid, and already crying out in protest of the ultimatum Schwarz had set.

Penny- Weiss didn't know how or why she felt this way, but she knew that whatever blame there was to lay for this situation- none of it lay with her. And, she felt her tender feelings raging against the hardness of her cold exterior. They'd been the ones to wake up Penny; they'd been the one's who'd failed to save her. And now they were standing here, watching her execution play out.

Penny... she was going to die, because of them.


They were going to kill Penny!

Ruby wanted to weep. She could feel her heart wrenching as the horrible realization slowly settled into it.

They... they... they couldn't just do that! She knew what happened to Pyrrha was bad, but Penny had just woken up, she probably panicked or something.

Ruby was sure of it!


Blake was hit again with the cold chills that raised her hackles.

It wasn't because of the rain. Memories of her time in the White Fang came flooding back to her, of the coldness she felt so often when the hard decisions came. And she recalled the horrible gash that had been left in Pyrrha's bones. Blake had gotten a good look at the wound, and she'd taken care to cover it up before anyone else had the chance to; but, what she'd seen had turned her blood icy: Pyrrha had been struggling to stand when Penny attacked her, and the blade dragged less than inch away from her heart. Blake shuddered at the realization: had Pyrrha been just a little bit weaker, just a little less alert, had she just a little bit less aura... Blake would have been tending to a corpse right now.


They were going to kill Penny!

Nora wanted to weep. She could feel her heart wrenching as the horrible realization slowly settled into it.

They... they... they couldn't just do that! She knew what happened to Pyrrha was bad, but Penny was just awakened, she probably panicked or something.

Nora was sure of it!


Ironwood was terribly afraid.

Always, it was always the fear.

He wasn't afraid of death- he was afraid of power; he was afraid that the day would come when the men and women under him would go to their deaths, and he would be the one sending them there. He was afraid that he wouldn't be good enough to save them. He was afraid that they would come as sacrificial pawns, and he would be the only one wielding the power to play them.

That fear was natural, and he was careful not to let it overwhelm him, careful not to let it's terrors engulf his judgement.

But, there was another fear, a more sophisticated terror that his only recourse against had been to avoid thinking about, to allow himself the comfort of ignoring what his most horrible nightmares couldn't comprehend.

He was afraid that, one day, the people he cared about- who had sacrificed everything for him- would need him, and that he would turn his back on them.

He had so many responsibilities, so many lives depending on him, and he was powerless to stop the weighing of the scales.

Penny was real, she'd been the most concrete evidence of good in this world, of strength and honor and joy, and he'd already failed her in more ways than he'd thought possible. First her death, and now what they'd done to her… oh gods what had they done to her?

Everyone was looking to him, now; after the initial commotion and silence.

They were waiting to see what he would do.

What could he do?

He looked to Schwarz, who had made such strong demands. He knew he could push back against her. Maybe he couldn't stop her, but he could negotiate. He could say something.

But Schwarz, too, was looking at him, and he saw sympathy in her eyes.

He almost chuckled through the weight of the sadness that had built in his lungs. Penny was real. She'd trusted him all throughout her life. But now she'd almost killed a huntress, and was rampaging throughout the manor. Milling through the thousands of civilians that went obviously about their days. And he could see the same fear in Schwarz eyes that he felt in his heart. It was the same fear as his own, and he understood easily why Schwarz now stood on edge. The way things had gone, he was sure she would have felt more relaxed had the entirety of the castle population been hanging over a wood chipper.

She'd been very patient with him, to give him even this word of warning before sending the kill order.

On the other hand, if Ironwood didn't give his word, there would be a counterbalance. They could be tried for treason if they killed Penny against his instruction. That could make her think twice.

But, the Schnee Manor staff were Atlas citizens as well; they were his citizens.

And it was with the greatest horror that he looked stoically back and Schwarz, and nodded his consent.


Oddly, things were quiet after Ironwood's agreement.

Although it was a tense quiet, one which seemed suspended on everyone's slim hopes as they strung out their patience and, all of them, looked to Mr. S.

Manor security was a jurisdiction of the Schnee family, as Schwarz's declaration had proved. And, under normal circumstances, none would have doubted what Mr. Schnee's decision on the matter would be. But, right now, as they all looked wearily at him, they were tense as they saw his contemplative posture.

Mr. S stood with troubled visage, glaring down at invisible thoughts.

And everyone was trained onto him.

What they would have given to know his thoughts at that moment.


They were going to kill Penny!

Mr. S wanted to weep! He could feel his heart wrenching as the horrible realization slowly settled into him.

They... they... they couldn't just do that! He knew what happened to Pyrrha was bad, but Penny was just awakened, she probably panicked or something.

Mr. S was sure of it!


And so they committed to taking the non-lethal route.

What is the non-lethal route you may ask?

The answer lay partially in the discarded sword which was held firmly in Ironwood's grip, and partially in the technical guide Dr. Polendina rapidly flipped through, looking for the right script that would be able to hack into and shut down Penny.

All throughout the manor, a general evacuation was underway. And streams of people occasionally mulled through the near-empty hallways. This time, however, the evacuation was unguided, as everyone clearly remembered the procedure from last week.

Schwarz was at the head of the group, fording through the torrent of people as they stalked carefully through the inner halls, keeping always a close eye on the security footage projected onto her tablet as she guided Dr. Polendina to his lab. Ironwood stood close beside her, a steady grip on his gun, and another holding onto one of Zama's discarded blades.

Schwarz manipulated her tablet, setting off yet more sharp blasts as the automatic doors shut heavily. Their thick steel bodies closed behind the last of the servants to exit the lockdown region. Then a sharp flash of light illuminated their borders, and the doors rang as if struck by hammers, as the line of explosives running along the frame set off, and shut closed, irrevocably, the welded figures of the now locked doors.

Far behind their group, teams RWBY and Juniper followed at a crawling pace, held back by their need to remain together as Jaune and Ren supported Pyrrha's half collapsed form through the hall.

Mr. S was walking along with them, ostensibly there as an adult figure that could protect them, and actually present because he somewhat doubted his ability to keep up with Schwarz's group in case they started playing dodgeball with bullets.

Unfortunately, his group had been able to keep up with Schwarz's in the more conventional sense, and he soon saw the back of them.

And it was just then that a pack of colorful figures jumped out from the opposite side of the hallway, barely registering in Mr. S's vision before they rushed to a stop before Schwarz's group, saluting the woman while standing at attention.

Twilight was at the head of them.

"Schwarz!" she saluted. "We came as soon as we could!"

"No you didn't," Schwarz answered sternly, letting through some of her usually well-hidden rage as she turned a hard look onto Pinkamena.

The rest of the team turned nervous, side-long looks onto one another, and particularly onto Pinkamena, who tried her best not to look suspicious despite the half smudged cake of white powder that covered her lips and chin, which was marred with streaks of hastily attempted cleanings.

In all, she had an innocent, wide eyed look of a child caught eating sugar with a spoon.

In this case, the sense of innocence was marred slightly by the fact that the white powder around Pinkamena's mouth probably wasn't sugar.

"Ok," Pinkamena held up her hand placatively, backing away a little from the increasingly stable look Schwarz was turning onto her. "I'm sober," she explained. "buuuut, I also just ate half a pound of crack."

Schwarz had never struck a friend in anger before, and she was quickly saved from breaking that record as Pinkamena raised a hand defensively and yelled: "I can still teleport! I really can!" She cringed slightly away from Schwarz's unconsciously raised hand. "It's just that as soon as I do, the drugs will completely diffuse through my bloodstream, and we'll have about…" she paused, struggling to do the mental calculations, "five minutes, before I won't be able to carry anyone with me without intersection incidents."

"What's an intersection incident?" Ruby asked as her group came into earshot.

Pinkamena perked up at the question and turned a beaming smile onto the group of kids, hardly batting an eye at the blood soaked Pyrrha.

"Well…" Pinkaena paused, putting finger under her lower lip. "Have you ever had concrete in your lungs?"

The rest of them seemed to be suffering from blood loss, now, as their faces drained at the thought.

"Nevermind that," Schwarz cut a hand through the air and pointed stiffly at Pinkamena. "You stay with me; don't teleport until I tell you too." Schwarz then turned to the rest of the team. "The rest of you, secure the region!"

The rest of the team scattered through the separate hallways, leaving Pinkamena behind, as the excitable woman stood expectantly before Schwarz, hopping lightly on each foot.

"So?" Pinkamena asked with a wide smile, a testament to her irrepressible joy, "what now?"

And even Schwarz felt herself feeling thankful for Pinkamena's easy attitude. It was always nice to know that the woman could keep a smile on her face.

Then Mrs. Schnee turned the far corner, covered in rock dust and hate, and swiveled her head as she noticed the group.

"Hello," she said calmly.

Pinkamena's smile evaporated, and she, along with everyone else, backed away from Mr. S.

"Hello," Mr. S responded, trying not to sound like he was bargaining with an approaching land mine.

Mrs. Schnee closed the distance between the two of them.

"What's going on?" she asked, glaring.

"Emergency evacuation," Mr. S answered, having come to the conclusion that honesty was probably the best policy, considering the rate at which his more recent lies tended to explode in his face.

"And why is it you're skulking around here with your security team instead of dealing with the escaped robot!" Willow hissed.

"You know about the robot?" Mr. S asked, surprised.

"We met in the hallway, just after it failed to crush me."

"Oh, well, we're all glad you're safe," Mr. S said putting as much sincerity as he could into the words. "We were actually just going to take care of it," Mr. S appeased, moving to walk around the woman.

"And how are you taking care of it exactly?" Willow asked skeptically, looking at the group.

Mr. S gestured to Ironwood and the sword. "Pietro here can use that sword to disable it's security systems, but we have to take him to his lab firs-"

"That doesn't make sense," Mrs. Schnee interrupted, turning around to face Mr. S's back.

Mr. S winced and shut his eyes.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he said, killing himself with the obvious bullshit that he was peddling, and that Mrs. Schnee was apparently not buying… first time that had happened since he got here, actually.

"I mean, why are you wasting time with this hacking nonsense, just take it out!" Willow swept an arm decisively.

"It's more complicated than that," Mr. S explained, closing his eyes with apparent patience and turning back around to face her. From this new vantage point he could see the kids gathered up behind her; mom and dad were fighting again.

"I don't see how it is complicated," Willow challenged. "The only thing even remotely complicated about this entire situation is how you've managed to set off the second evacuation this week, and have insisted on taking half measures while a military robot is roaming the halls!"

"She's a person, Willow," Mr. S answered her.

"This palace is full of people, Jaques! My people… you'd kill them all just to preserve your damned robot!" Willow interrupted, wavering emotion rising in her voice. "Don't you ever forget that. And these are my servants you've sworn yourself to defend, not that your promises mean much. So don't think for an instant I'm willing to trade their safety because you value your expensive toys so-"

"I said we'll take care of it!" Mr. S snapped.

Mrs. Schnee quieted suddenly. She blinked, and took a step back.

Immediately, Mr S sobered up from his brief flash of frustration, taking his own step back. "And in case you've forgotten," he continued, committed to his words despite the sudden weakness that had taken them, "the security team is under my command, so, please, stop taking up so much of our time right now,"

Mrs. Schnee, still distracted somewhat by her patent amazement, didn't do anything to him- yet.

"Schwarz," Mr S turned with calm panic, "I think it's time for us to go."

"Pinkamena, time to go to the-" Schwarz started, turning to find herself in the lab, much like everyone else. She looked around as the fluorescent lights in Dr. Polendina's lab blinked on, illuminating the sterile chrome fixtures that lined the room. "Good job," she said, instead, nodding her approval to the colorful woman, who beamed back at her while giving a proud salute.

Her hand froze when it met her forehead, however, sending a deep jolt through the point of contact that reverberated through her entire body. "Oooh," Pinkamena shivered in place, her spine stiff as cold waves rippled extremely across her skin. "Yeah, this is a five minuter," she warned, eyes dilating as she glanced at the green accent lights dotted throughout the lab.

"We won't need that long," Pietro replied, traveling over to the desk sized computer embedded in one of the walls. He reached out a hand, sliding it over the power disk.

GHMMM.

The computer powered on like a lightswitch, and Pietro didn't waste any time before his fingers were scattered across the metallic keyboard like rattling chains.

Beside him, Ironwood shot brief flashes of electricity from the tips of his metallic fingers, soldering the loose ends of Penny's wire sword into the reader drive of the machine.

In seconds, the screen lit up with a skeletal model of their primary subject, and the control virus was uploaded through the castle systems.


Zama's fingers were weightless, and they felt like gloves for a more substantial entity that commanded their movements. Even as her body froze like an iron casket, Zama felt her eyes turn of their own accord.

The blasted remains of the server room lay smouldering around her, and charcoal streaks painted the floor, evidence of the explosion.

Her head turned away from the scene, invisible strings puppeting her limbs and forcing her inner light to dim. A shut off sequence was being initiated, she realized, and she felt a cold lethargy resisting her every thought.

She could feel it, inside her body- the receiver: the device that forced her body to obey these foreign commands. It sat like a cold rock in her lower torso, an ancient, cobwebbed structure that sat where a human liver might have.

So it was a natural target for her, when a red aura suffused through her body, and Zama felt a second of control liberate her movements.

Zama's arm flashed down into her lower torso, breaking violently through the outer skin and boring deeply into her own guts. Her hand swam through the metal and wiring, and Zama could feel her systems screeching in protest as she forced her hand out, the receiver grasped firmly within it.

It was a dust object, caged in gold wires that grew taut and snapped as she tore it out of her internals. She felt an acrid, rusty feeling grow in her with every broken wire, and she felt an involuntary shiver tickle her being when the last gold wire broke and the now independent receiver sat in her hand.

She let it drop to the floor. It bounced, letting out a crystalline ring.

And yet, despite the loss of the transceiver, Zama could still feel weakened attempts being made to breach her systems. She could feel futile rings of energy attempting to overcome her control.

And she developed an awareness, too, of the shining world of electronics that now surrounded her.

She pulled back half a step, looking all around herself, taking in all the electricity and chattering machines that surrounded her. It hadn't occurred to her to pay special attention to it before, but Zama was quickly coming to the realization that this castle wasn't very much different from her. Of course, it had many parts, but all of it was connected to some much larger whole. And, now, given the object lesson in hacking she'd just been given, Zama was very much paying special attention to the possibilities present; she could see glaring weaknesses in the systems surrounding her, glowing in the cracks and deformities of the whole. It was a large mess of electronics that, unlike her, didn't have the power to drive off sufficiently sophisticated attacks.

And Zama, as she sent out probing waves of light more complex and dense than any other being on Remnant could process, felt she was more than sufficiently sophisticated.

Zama could feel the castle singing back to her as she let her controlling light spread out into it. She could feel it resisting, too, however. And time was short. Then, another burst of inspiration came.

She looked down at the glowing transceiver, which she'd ripped out of herself, and which was lying quietly on the floor, glowing with received commands. It had a direct line to the castle, and, though it had lost its connection to her, it was humming with access codes…

Zama looked down again, at the intestinal mess of gold-copper wires that hung lifelessly down from the open tear in her stomach.

The transceiver glowed ever brighter, hanging like an ominous talisman around Zama's neck, held there by ropes of wire that fashioned it into a crude, necklace. And as the receiver glowed on her chest, running on dregs of internal power, she could feel it calling to her, telling her all the bypass codes and access credentials that were being shouted into it by distant hackers.

And again, she let her commanding light shine into her surroundings.

And this time, the castle obeyed.


Mr. S was standing on eggshells as Dr. Polendina commenced hacking, or rather, as the script that Dr. Polendina ran on the computer commenced hacking.

A green loading bar took up most of the screen and crawled across it like a handicapped slug; It was boring.

Or, rather, it would have been boring if Mr. S weren't on the verge of throwing up from fear.

It wasn't often that Mr. S snapped. But the previous altercation with Mrs. Schnee had hit an especially sore spot for him. Because when the time had come for Schwarz to run the kill order on Penny, he'd been the one to stop it. He'd been the one to authorize the riskier plan for them to hack her instead.

And of course, as everyone knew and no one but Willow had been willing to say- that decision was absolutely insane.

If he'd just shut his big mouth and let the security team handle it, he'd been assured- in no uncertain terms- that Penny would be disabled within the minute. His security team was good, especially when focused on offence, and there was even a fifty percent chance they might be able to incapacitate the girl without destroying, or otherwise seriously damaging, her brain.

But, if he authorised a hacking attempt, it could take anywhere from eight to eighteen minutes just to organize the evacuation, get to the lab, and make the hacking attempt.

That didn't seem like much, but the look he'd seen in Schwarz eyes made clear that this was a situation akin to having ticking bomb lying in a crib, because, in a worst case scenario, with a hunter level robot milling in a building full of civilians- the casualty estimates were measured in hundreds of lives... per minute.

That had been a hard dose of reality for him to take. He felt a sense of responsibility to Penny, but to expose so many people to such risk, for even the five minutes it would take to perform an evacuation… that was untenable.

It became even more untenable when Penny blew up the mail room.

Thankfully, no lives had been lost. Very thankfully, no lives had been lost, because even before that it had been difficult to argue the girl's case. And, afterwards... well, even Penny's friends, even Pietro, had lost the will to argue Penny's case, in that moment.

But, Mr. S remembered a small fact he'd read about Penny when he'd, in an idle moment, looked through her manual. He remembered that Penny had no incendiary attacks to speak of, except the beam cannon- which required her swords. And looking down at the lab floor, he counted all of her six swords laying there, after the girl had escaped without them.

It was a small hunch, but it had been enough for him to order Schwarz to take the nonlethal route.

And.. he was surprised at how well everyone had taken the obviously insane order. They almost even seemed to support it, if only by their tacit agreement not to oppose it. It was a hard order for him to give, but everyone, absolutely everyone- even Schwarz- seemed relieved and even happy that he'd ordered them not to kill her.

But that relief was not for Mr. S to experience.

Because, as soon as he gave the order, and as soon as the general evacuation was enacted, Mr. S felt himself overwhelmed by a horrible terror, one that refused to leave him. Every minute seemed to tick by slower than the last, and every evacuating civilian he saw seemed to jolt his heart like a cattle prod.

After all, his nice deduction about Penny's swords had been comforting in the moment, but it seemed insane to base any decisions off it when people were evacuating like their lives depended on it. Sherlock Holmes style deductions were nice until people died!

After all, what if Penny started slaughtering people in the halls right then? What if she started during the evacuation, when all those people were packed together like sardines? What if she started when they were in a bad spot on their way to Dr. Pietro's lab…

It honestly stabbed at Mr. S for every moment of the evacuation, and for some reason the feeling hardly subsided even after the local evacuation had been completed.

And it hit all the harder when Willow threw all of his wishful logic in his face.

And so he'd snapped at her.

He'd apologize later, he thought briefly to himself.

The evacuation was done now, and the hacking was halfway through. Looking at the computer screen, Mr. S saw that it was almost time for them to send the disruption signal that would shutPenny down.

From there, it would be a simple matter to collect her and fix everything.

They were seconds away from fixing everything without a single casualty, and Mr. S… was still absolutely terrified.

It was superstitious of him, but the closer the loading bar approached to completion, the worse the feeling became. He felt something terrible was on the verge of happening.

And then, the loading bar froze, and Mr. S felt a terrible, terrible feeling.

It was that feeling one gets when they remember that they didn't save their files.

It was that feeling when you tried to hack an advanced AI with a script, and then failed.

And, that terrible, horrible, nightmare-inducing feeling was nothing compared to the unfathomable storm of terror that followed when the hacking procedure stopped for a moment and then froze, as if to say- "ok, my turn"- before rapidly spreading out in an epilective wave of lighting that shut off the computer and set the lab's lights flickering.

This… this feeling was bad.

This was the feeling one gets when they remember that they left their dog and kids in the house… and that the house was on fire.

It was that feeling that descendants of Nantucket whalers who were also survivors of the Titanic got whenever they saw a whale shaped iceberg.

And it was the feeling that was now nearly driving Mr. S to stuttering fits, as he looked around himself and realized something he wasn't yet willing to believe possible. At least, something he wasn't willing to believe until he turned and saw Schwarz, and saw on her visage something that terrified him more than anything he'd ever imagined could.

Mr S had seen Schwarz handle PR Disasters, stock crashes, and assassination attempts- but the one thing he'd never seen on her face was fear.

Granted, the level of fear Schwarz displayed was still minimal, and hardly hindered her when she turned to Pinakmena and gave the order.

"Cut the wire," She said.

And Schwarz spoke the last half of her sentence a different hallway, far in the lower reaches of the Schnee manor.

Everyone else was confused, as they took in their new surroundings. Although, they weren't quite as confused at Schwarz, who looked back to Pinkamena with a questioning expression.

"This is the wrong hallway," Schwarz said, speaking in low tones, taking a moment to observe a nearby metal sign pressed twelve feet up a near wall, and proclaiming in bright, bold letters, "L2D4".

"This is the wrong level," Schwarz added, turning a more pronounced scowl onto Pinkamena, who stood, trembling, with sinusoidal motions rocking through her body.

"I am so, so high, Schwarz" Pinkamena apologized, looking up at the roof, with bright lights reflecting off her dilated pupils. "But, I think we're just two levels too sorry. So we can just take the-"

Boom!

A soft thrum went through the castle.

"What's that!?" Weiss turned, crouching low, hackles raised.

"She's probably sealing the main doors." Schwarz answered.

Boom!

"Pinkamena!" Schwarz yelled.

And this time, they were in the right room. It was a small space, and it was filled with a cool, blue light, on account of the the massive screen that took up most of the wall in front of them,on which was displayed an informational map of the castle.

Boom!

"Wait, what do you mean, 'she'?" Weiss asked.

"I mean Penny," Schwarz said blandly, as she leant over the control board in front of screen, and set to typing in her acces codes. "She's in control of the castle now."

"That's impossible!" Weiss, Ironwood, and Pietro denied, all in unison.

"She can't just hack the castle!" Weiss said.

"The sub-systems are completely independent-" Pietro justified, cut off when another explosive thrum went through the building.

"It doesn't matter," Schwarz shot back, rapidly typing another set of keys. "The fact is, she has control of the castle, and she's welding all the doors shut."

Schwarz said it in no uncertain terms, and the rest of the group huddled together in silence, looking at her back as she worked resolutely at the control board.

And ahead of her, a cross section of the castle projected itself onto the screen, and various thick, colored lines drilled down from the castle and into the bedrock, webbing out through the projected underground of Atlas City.

Everything from water mains, to electricity, to dust, to security protocols intimately connected the Schnee Manor to the networked ecosystem that was the floating city.

And Schwarz, as she entered the final commands, and pulled out a physical key attached to a cloth chain, prepared herself to destroy those connections.

Firmly, she entered the key into place.

"Sir," Schwarz said, freezing with her hand on the key. "I'm requesting permission to cut us off from the rest of the city."

Several glowing bombs, depicted on the screen as being buried under the castle, made very clear exactly how said cut-off would be executed.

Mr. S knew at this point he'd lost it.

Penny had the castle. It was impossible, but Penny had somehow taken it, and from there he only imagined what she might be able to do to Atlas, to the electrical grid, and artificial atmosphere and heating units… to what she might be able to do to the floating arrays that held the city up…

And it bothered Mr. S more than anything that everyone was being so calm about it. That no one had spoken even the slightest hint of blame in his direction.

But, they were in a position, now, where their only option was to set off the underground explosives, and cut the castle off from everything… from the water main, from the electrical grid, and from its own lower levels.

All that was left for Mr. S to do was give the order, and hopefully never to give another one for as long as he lived.

"Has everyone evacuated to the lower level?"

"Yes," Schwarz said.

"Then you have my permission."

Schwarz clicked the key with a mechanical jerk, and the screen shut off, and the lights went out, and several seconds passed before distant rumblings, like random firecrackers, touched the soles of their feet.

They didn't have the chance to experience it fully, however, before they once again switched positions, and found themselves in a short, gray level filled with people.

Below where the incision had been made, the basement levels of the castle still drew plenty of power, and were filled with plenty of people.

The level was vast, and the walls seemed to be a mile away, although the distance was hard to judge considering the endless crowd that blocked the line of sight everywhere.

Winter floated against one of the far walls, herding together a large group of people, and guiding them to one of the underground tunnels.

Pinkamena collapsed onto the floor, muttering nonsense. On all sides, she was surrounded by the rest of the security team, who didn't seem at all perturbed by their sudden appearance in the crowded location.

A sudden quiet fell over the immediate surroundings as the chattering crowd grew used to their sudden appearance. Mr. S looked around himself at the staring faces, and he looked at the downcast expressions of his own group. A deeply disheartening emotion was apparent on all their faces, and they felt unable to look at one another, as they split apart into their constituent teams.

Teams RWBY and Juniper went to the near wall, just within hearing range of the adults, as an expanding area of clear space formed around the recent arrivals, as servants and contractors alike moved away to give them the space.

...

Mr. S felt his hand jittering with energy as he attempted to move it to his side.

Winter had arrived and asked what the next course of action was, and Schwarz had answered:

"We need to conduct a partial evacuation of the city, lay several mines underneath the palace, and break it apart until it loses constituency. From there, once we force Penny out, we can confront her with regular forces. We should be able to conduct the operation with no civilian casualties and acceptable collateral damage."

Schwarz had said the plan like it was the only plan, and everyone's attempts to argue had only proved her right.

"Can't you just send a team into the castle?" Pietro asked, nervously.. "Surely, once your Pinkamena sobers up-"

"That is no longer an option," Schwarz said with infinite patience. "She has control of the castle now, and it has enough auxiliary reserves to remain functional until the end of this century. If we try to fight her in there, we're going to die. With her level of control, she can fill every room with poison gas, flood any level with fire."

Schwarz, despite the subdued cast of her voice, did not seem at all overwhelmed by the situation, instead taking refuge in the cold logic that could see her through this situation.

And Mr. S clung on to that supreme logic, steadying himself against it, as he stood assaulted by the passing glances and quiet murmurs of the surrounding servants who, while they had moved a respectful distance off, were still well within range to keep a curious eye on him.

All of this worrying was soon dashed, however, when a section of the wall of servants that circled around them parted, and Mr. S felt himself recoil from the image they revealed. Mrs. Schnee walked through, standing on the edge of the clearing and scanning across until her eyes met Mr. S'.

"You," she breathed out, sounding like she'd smoked one too many stratocasters in her death metal career.

Mr. S, considering the situation, didn't bother to say anything, and just barely kept his head from hanging with shame.

"What?" Willow raised her voice above the crowd, enforcing a sudden silence on the previously crowded airspace. She walked forward, tilting her head in mean angles. "Nothing to say now?" she asked. "Has it finally gotten to your head that you can't gamble away other's peoples lives for your stupid toys!"

"I-"

"What were you thinking!" Willow yelled. "You've lost the castle! You've destroyed my home you inconsolate, unthinking brute! Can't you keep even that much together!" she shoved her index finger into Mr S' left shoulder hard enough to numb the entire limb. "I can't believe this," she paced, whispering the words under her breath. "I can't believe you would do this!" she continued with increasing volume. "I leave you with everything you could have ever wanted. I give over everything I have to you, and I'm standing here shocked that you would treat it like dirt! Can't you even pretend to act like a good person!" Willow's anger scratched grooves into her voice and brought tears to her eyes as she turned to pace the other direction. "You were nothing but an invader to my home! You were never anything other than that! But I stayed with you! I sacrificed everything just so long as you would promise-"

"Would you shut up!?"

A sharp voice rang through the crowded level, and all eyes turned to where Weiss had stepped away from the wall.

"Would you just shut up!?" Weiss repeated. "This has nothing to do with you!" Weiss claimed, pointing to Mr. S to say: "It has nothing to do with him! No one could have known this would have happened, and he did the right thing because P" - Weiss stopped, suddenly,looking at the numerous witnesses and rapidly shifted gears - "she wasn't a toy!" Weiss continued at last. "And I'm tired of you always doing this! You always hide away in your room and drink yourself half to death, and you come out preening as if anyone owes you anything! I don't care! No one cares! You don't know anything about what we've been through, and you don't know anything about sacrifice! So go on, keep yelling at dad, but at least he's trying!"

Weiss's last words came out the loudest, and she seemed to be riding her whole soul on them. Her fists were clenched tightly under her chin, eyes shut as she outright screamed the words that she herself couldn't even hear, so lost was she in the moment.

She kept her eyes closed for several moments, huffing with the exertion of her statements.

When she opened them, Willow was standing just before her.

Willow didn't even recognize that her hand had moved before it struck Weiss.

Weiss felt her head whip to the side, her body turning with the blow as a loud slap stung her cheek.

She blinked her eyes rapidly, and by the time she'd turned them back onto her mother with a defiant look, Willow had already turned away and was carving a path through the rapidly parting crowd of servants that circled around them.

Immediately, on cue, everyone turned their eyes from the scene, and from her. It was a strange but familiar feeling, to be the center of so many people's attention and yet not to see a single pair of eyes on her.

The exceptions to this crowd rule were her friends, who were strangers to her house, and who looked ready to rush to her side.

Weiss turned away with a tense ball of emotions hanging in her chest, one which only seemed to grow more apparent the more she tried to put on a neutral face.

She saw the worry in her friend's faces as she approached them. They were looking at her and it was- humiliating!

"Weiss…" Ruby prompted quietly, as she approached their.

"What?" Weiss asked, taking her place against the wall, though now several feet from the rest of them.

"Are…" Ruby looked aside at the strange surroundings, unsure of what she could say. "Are you ok?" Ruby asked.

"Are you capable of asking questions that aren't a waste of time!" Weiss snapped, her anger stalling slightly when she saw Ruby present a strong calm face, rather than her usual recoil. Weiss sighed. "Of course I'm fine," she answered, resisting the urge to rub her cheek.


Time passed quickly after that, and everyone soon became caught up in their respective assignments, as Schwarz and Winter planned the evacuation, and everyone else tried to pass the time.

Ruby, to her surprise and delight, had found a new friend.

"Farbe!" Ruby smiled, holding her arms up as she noticed her tutor break through the crowd to approach the small huddle she and her group made against one of the walls.

"Ruby!" Farbe said, holding up a small stack of notebooks.

"Are… those for me?" Ruby asked, smile fading.

"Haha, no need to let an evacuation postpone our tutoring, right?" Farbe asked, taking a moment to greet the rest of Ruby's friends once she and Ruby reached the group.

"But… do we have to study right now?"

"No time like the present," Farbe smiled, slamming an open notebook onto the ground and gesturing for Ruby to sit beside her.

"Huhhh, ok," Ruby sighed. "Since when are maids so stringent about schedules anyway?"

Farbe chuckled. "I'm not a maid. I'm an intern!"

"Really?" Ruby was surprised. "I thought only schnee servants could get maid jobs. And you were working as a maid when we first met. Remember when Mr. Schnee told you to give us our presents?"

"Oh," Farbe exclaimed with a surprised look. "You're... surprisingly knowledgeable," she complimented Ruby's proud smile. "But, I actually get shuffled around to a lot of different jobs. It's part of the work experience thing."

"Oh, bu-"

"Anyway," Farbe said, hastily flipping to a random page in her notes. "It says here your first lesson is to be about political systems. Apparently, your previous schooling led you to some pretty… unorthodox perspectives on the matter."

"Oh!" Ruby perked, excited to be talking about a familiar matter. "I know! The only political system is the individual, and all government is there to protect the individual from the mob, and nothing else!"

"Really?" Farbe probed, a kind, curious look to her face.

"Well, I think that's what I remember hearing," Ruby said, a little less certain.

"And do you believe that?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Ruby blinked, perplexed.

Farbe smirked.

"Come on," Farbe said, with a playful, goading smile. "Isn't there anything you've thought of yourself?"

"Well," Ruby said shyly, pressing two index fingers together and twisting her hands, "I've always had this idea where everyone could just share all the money."

"Right," Farbe said, not revealing too much of her incredulity, "but imagine… could you actually implement that system without violence?"

"Of course!" Ruby said, "Just vote."

And, something like a fishing rod seemed to jingle in Farbe's head, as she saw the series of softballs Ruby was tossing in her direction.

"So, given that," Farbe said, after a long series of logical deductions, "what can we conclude?"

"That violence is the root of all power?" Ruby said, uncomfortably.

"And therefore, is it not the case that violence is the only expression of true political speech, the only avenue for meaningful change? The world hasn't gotten to where it has without the occasional revolution, or bombing, or…" Farbe thought hard, grasping for examples, "say, poisoning, no?"

"I guess it's hard to argue with that?" Ruby admitted, not entirely convinced, but feeling like the conversation had opened up new avenues for her, exposed her to ideas she would never have even considered otherwise as being valid.

Farbe sighed, seeing that she hadn't gotten completely through to the girl, "you'll come around soon enough."


On their way to ready the evacuation tunnels, Mr.S grew to appreciate some facts about the space.

For one, the entire room they were packed into was huge; each wall was about a mile long.

So the fact that they were all packed tightly into it confused Mr S, until he reached the edge of the group and saw that the majority of the servants had gathered into a small crowd in one corner of the room, and the crush of bodies had simply made it difficult to see the relative emptiness of the vast majority of the space.

And now that he, along with Schwarz, Winter, Ironwood and Sky had made it out of the edge of the crowd, and onto the flat plain the, he found himself asking another question.

"Why are all the contractors and interns on another level, if we have so much room here?" he asked, trying to pass the time with idle questions.

"Security reasons," Schwarz answered.

Well, that was good enough for him.

"How are we going to destroy the castle?" Winter asked, all business.

"We're going to dig under it and plant several mines. If we destroy the west wing, the rest should collapse with relatively minimal effort on our part."

Schwarz said the words as if she was talking about the weather.

"Why can't we just go up there and kick ass again?" Sky asked, ruffling her shoulders with an annoyed habit.

"We can't face her while she's still in the castle."

As she spoke, they passed by another door, this one chrome colored, with large glass panels in the center of it.

As they walked along the perimeter of the room, they passed by such doors at regular intervals, affording them a view into a large variety of storage rooms.

There was the spare parts room, the cleaning supplies room, the aviation repair tools room, and many, many others.

And, it was out of one of those doors that a servant robot walked out with stiff motions, and a sudden worry struck Mr. S.

"Um, Schwarz," he said, interrupting the woman. "Is there any chance she may have compromised any of the robots down here before we cut the connection?"

As he spoke, he looked worriedly about the vast expanse of floor space, and at the several dozen robots that mulled through it on their way to their various pre programmed tasks.

"Of course not," Schwarz answered. "The robots aren't connected to the castle system; they're about as hackable as a houseplant. The only time they're even connected to the castle system is when they're undergoing repairs," Schwarz said, standing in front of the robot-repair room.

Mr. S, along with everyone else, couldn't help looking over her shoulder at the frosted etching that labeled the glass door behind her.

Schwarz sighed as she processed their looks. "I'm standing in front of a repair station, aren't I?"

A screech was her answer, as she turned and looked into the glass center of the metal door. Inside was a deep darkness, and very dim lights hinted at the extreme depth and breadth of the space inside. Nearest to them, on the beds most clearly visible, she saw the various dilapidated bodies of robots rising from their metal beds. Many of them were missing limbs, and those that weren't walked stiffly, or sometimes outright crawling across the floor.

"Uh, Schwarz," Sky said, "remember when you said we need to get her out of the castle?"

"Yes?" Schwarz said, she shot out a fist and struck the door handle, fusing the metal shut. "What of it?"

"Well, I don't think we need to worry about that anymore," Sky said, pointing down at Schwarz scroll, which hung at her belt.

Schwarz looked down, and saw what everyone else saw.

Seismic readings showed a dense object was rapidly tunneling down to their location, sifting through the debris of the explosion like a fish through water.

And worryingly, it seemed to be aiming at their location a little bit too precisely to be done by chance.

"Winter!" everyone called at the same time, speaking in the same manner a lost child might call for their mother.

Mr S flinched away from the cold gust that signalled Winter's near instant arrival.

"What is it?" she asked in a professional tone.

"Seismic readings!" Mr. S responded, pointing down at Schwarz's scroll.

"Tunneling!" Sky mimed, lifting her fingers to the roof.

"We believe Penny may be tunneling to our location from sector E," Schwarz said. "We'd like for you to interdict her."

Winter nodded, accepting the information onto her own scroll and flying up. Her head had barely touched the ceiling when the earth shifted and a moving tunnel opened up around her, guiding her expedition through the various levels of dirt and stone as she converged on Penny's location.

She traveled up several levels of dirt, stone and rubble in a flash.

Although, just before she reached it, Winter paused, coming to a sudden halt just before the final ceiling that led to Penny's current location..

She could hear, inches above her, rumbling scratches of the maniac excavations. She was sure she could hear several mines being placed.

And that was enough to move her to action.

She felt herself rooted firmly to the air, as she moved a dense arm forward, one that was powered by her shoulders and driven by an unwavering surety.

And the earth complied, and shifted away from her motion, held back for just a moment as it compressed against the metal reinforced surface of the floor above.. And then, Winter set a determined scowl, and pressed her arm an inch further forward, and the level exploded up a thousand feet. Metal shrapnel ricocheted, filling the level with an explosion of sparks and a cacophonous storm of broken metal.

The dust that built up immediately dispersed, as winter hovered quickly up into the level, and looked into the sudden clarity, and the rapidly falling dust that stirred the air and caked every solid surface, including the metal bodies of the servant robots that milled across every surface of the level.

Winter quickly categorized their threat levels and found it wanting; because Penny was nowhere to be seen, all that surrounded her were several poorly coordinated servant bots, crawling and stumbling about the warped and broken surface of the level floor.

Which was curious because servant bots were hardly dangerous, really all they'd been good for was as a distraction…

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Winter chanted, as she raced back down the levels to the evacuation room, ceasing her curses just as she broke through the ceiling and landed back in the center of the room.

By the time she'd arrived, the evacuation was far underway and Zama and the security team were already in stalemate.

Zama was just several feet away from Weiss and her friends. Nearby, Mr. S, Schwarz and the security team stood frozen, afraid to make any sudden movements, lest they startle the subject of their collective attention.

"Zama… stop," Schwarz ordered sternly, hiding her steady movement forwards within the surety of her voice.

Zama halted, surprisingly genial, and not at all bothered by the quiet rush of servants who hurried to pass by her on wide, arcing paths that took them to the evacuation stations.

"Step back from them," Schwarz continued.

Zama replied with a metallic voice, "I'm sorry, Schwarz; I'm afraid I can't do that."

"You know my name," Schwarz noted with a curious lilt.

"I do," Zama answered. "I remember we met once several years ago."

"If you remember so much, then why are you doing this?"

"I wanted to stop her," Zama answered, extending hand and gesturing to Farbe, who, still in her maid outfit, sat sprawled on the floor next to Ruby.

Farbe only recoiled from the extended hand, looking fearfully up at the woman.

Zama's bright eyes were prominent against her features, and the stark white bandages wrapped across her midriff stood out against the thick layer of soot that covered the rest of her body.

"What are you talking about?" Schwarz demanded.

"She planted a bomb in the mail room."

"What!" Farbe leapt up with a dextrous motion. "This is preposterous!" she snarled, backing away from the still pointing robot.

Unbeknownst to her, a small, metal pin on her side satchel suddenly tugged itself forth with incredible effort, and tore open a large gash in the bulging underside of her suede messenger bag.

The flood of material that came bursting to the ground was incriminating. Among the contents were a flash drive copy of "Pirate This Book", a black cap with a white fist emblazoned onto the front of it, security blueprints for the castle interior, a vial of poison with a skull and crossbones label, as well as several packets of high-explosive.

Farbe smacked her lips with some disappointment as she looked at the variety of items that had fallen to her feet. She then looked back up at Mr. S, Schwarz and all the adults that hadn't evacuated

Farbe again looked back down at the mound of incrimination and then looked back up again ar the increasingly suspicious looks that were taking the security team.

"You'll never take me alive!" Farbe yelled, pulling a short pistol from underneath her maid jacket, wildly firing off a burst of shots as she backed away.

All the bullets were blocked by Schwarz in the distance, and the woman crossed the intervening space in less time than the sound of her recoches, tackling Farbe to the floor and pinning the diminutive woman against the cool tiling.

"Drats! You've taken me alive!" Farbe cursed, as the Pistol was wrenched from her hand and a tight lock bound her wrists together behind her hand.

A violet light engulfed her, and the hard light illusion that covered her body dissolved away, revealing a rather more colorfully made up woman hiding beneath it.


Evacuations, being a rather committed process, were difficult to reverse. So, in consideration of securing the Manor against intrusion, it was decided that the evacuation would continue to completion, and that key personnel would spend the night alone in the Schnee Manor while the house staff took shelter in various outlying hotels and auxiliary palaces.

So, after the control of the castle had been transferred back to Schwarz, and after the relevant security keys had been returned, and Penny's transponder confiscated, Mr. S, Winter, Weiss Schwarz, Twilight, Pinkamena, Blake, Haetzen, Sky, Ochre, Dr. Polendina, Ruby, and Zama were all given passes to the castle.

Now, that may sound like a lot of people, but considering they had an entire castle to themselves, it turned out they each had quite a lot of space to themselves.

Granted, they weren't in a position to appreciate this fact considering they were all crammed into the main living chambers, staring at Zama.

Zama stood in the center of the room, as unmoving as a statute, unheeding of the spears of attention pointed onto her from all directions.

Squeak!

Squeak!

Well, almost all directions, she noted, as Ruby vainly worked the handle of a tap, leaning over to watch the pitiful drip of water that hung from the nozzle.

"Ruby, we don't have water anymore," Weiss explained for the fifth time from where she sat cross legged on the floor, scowling.

Somewhere, the lights flickered under auxiliary power.

"Focus," Schwarz interrupted Ruby's complaint before turning back to Zama. She'd been hoping that the girl would come forward on her own, but, seeing now that she seemed committed to silence, prompted her: "Why did you attack Pyrrha?"

"I apologize," Zama answered cooly in Pyrrha's direction. "In my most recent memory, we were in combat at Amity area; when I was reactivated, my memories were still being recalled, and I failed to account for any inconsistencies before my attack was initiated."

"It's ok!" Pyrrha cheered, smiling jovially at the robot.

"Why did you run away, then?" Schwarz asked.

"In order to stop, or otherwise mitigate the damage from the explosive Farbe had placed in the mailroom. Considering I arrived just in time to prevent any deaths, I think my avidity was justified.'

"Yes, you tunneled into the server room, below the mail station, carrying the bomb with you," Schwarz said, looking through the forensic reports of the mail room Twilight had drawn up. The security footage of the incident was, of course, unavailable. It appeared Farbe also had access to their camera system. It startled Schwarz that he had overlooked Farbe's part in the assasination attempt, none of the other suspects mentioned her, and none of the evidence had either… which prompted the question: "But how did you know Farbe was planning the attack?"

"When I woke up, my status as an Atlas military component gave me direct access to the public files of the Schnee Manor, as well as to the live security footage. From the information available, as well as the blackout of the security cameras near the mailroom, it was simple to deduce the response."

"Was it?" Schwarz raised an eyebrow. "And how did you deduce that?"

"Well, to summarise it, if we take "the probability that an attack is iminent on the mail room" to be c, and "the attack is due in the next five minutes" to be f, and we multiply the probabilities using (((cf)c)ff)(cf… well, I think it would be better explained in print form."

"Why's that?" Ruby asked.

"It goes on for twenty pages," Zama explained.

"Ok, fair enough," Sky pushed in with a slightly impressed tone. "But what about-"

"Hey!" Ruby shouted with a short jump, "since we know Penny isn't evil anymore! How about we tell campfire stories!" she announced enthusiastically, punching her fists into the open air. To support her proposition, she finished the impromptu dance by pointing at the ornate fireplace that was lit in the near wall of the room, burning fire dust and casting a warm light onto the cosily furnished waiting room.

Schwarz felt her chin come down to rest on her knee. The tablet readings had shown Penny wasn't lying, at least. And she was too tired to argue the point, anyhow.

"Fine," she acquiesced at last.

"Sweet! This is going to be the best sleepover partay!" Ruby hyped the rest of her exhausted team up, finding only a little support from Nora as she commandeered several couch cushions to build a pile of softness around the fireplace, gathering all of them around Pyrrha and some distance away from the adults as she patted a cushion next to hers while looking to Penny.

Mr. S felt Zama's shadow on him as the girl crossed the threshold between their group and the one the teenagers had formed at the other end of the room.

It was obvious by the movement that they wanted some distance, even if it wasn't from their volume.

Penny came to a stop at the outskirts of their little sitting circle, firelight flickering on her sturdy figure.

And she stopped tentatively, careful not to press a toe over that invisible semi circle that defined their border around the fireplace.

Excitedly, Ruby leant over to rapidly pat an empty space between her and Weiss, smiling invitingly up at the girl.

Zama let her gaze wander over the sitting figures, and carefully lowered herself into a sitting position.

And she sat silently for the moment, content to bask in the comfortable silence.

The rest of the group however, were far from content to sit in silence. In fact, they decided in quiet uninimity: fuck the silence. And they all spoke to her at once.

"So, how have you been!"

"...That was so cool, how you-"

"Hi, we haven't really been introduced, but I'm-"

"Noraaaaaaaaaaaaa-" Nora screamed her own name in an exercise of her vocals.

All in all, their excitement was palpable, and they seemed to stumble over their letters in a frenzied attempt to open conversation with her.

And all speakers were promptly silenced when Zama quietly stood up and started walking to the door.

A shameful quiet resolved itself over the group as they stared at her departing back. And they seemed to judge themselves harshly at the response they'd garnered, afraid to say anything more.

Schwarz, however, had no such compunctions, and when she saw Zama approaching the exit, she interrupted her. "Where are you going?" Schwarz asked, speaking quietly, with friendly curiosity, yet also embedding the statement with an uncompromising undercurrent that said it wasn't a question.

Zama paused just at the edge of the open doorway.

Beyond it, the hallways beyond were pitch black, the lights unpowered. And Zama's metal footsteps echoed briefly in them, alluding to the ageing abandonment that had overtaken the castle.

Zama looked down at her hand, which she raised up and flexed repeatedly into a fist.

"This body is crippled," she said.

"Well, Penny," Pietro approached with a jovial tone, "you did rip out your own transceiver. It will take some time-"

"That's not what I meant. You limited this body's capabilities before you awakened me."

For the first time, there was emotion in her words, and that emotion was unreadable - eaten up by the metallic tenor of her voice, and expressing nothing except what seemed to be a general negativity. It was hate, anger, blame and a million other things rolled into one.

"We simply redesigned it to be more protective," Piero justified. "We had to harden several key points, especially your dust batteries, you can imagine that-"

`"I'm the one who captured Farbe," Zama replied. "I'm more than shown my capability, and yet not one of you is even suggesting returning to me my past capabilities."

"Penny, whatever it is you're thinking, we don't want anything but the best for you," Pietro said, falling back onto that one truth, now that a general confusion seemed to have taken the room.

"I'm taking a walk," Zama announced and stepped a foot out the door.

Clang.

Metal hit metal, as Ironwood rushed in through the door, and Zama was sent two steps and a stumble back, landing in a sprawl that she barely caught herself in.

"Penny!" Ironwood leant worriedly over the fallen girl. "Are you ok!'

Penny ignored his outstretched hand, rising steadily to her feet, finding that by the time she'd gotten to a stand, the entire room had risen up along with her, perturbed looks glancing between all the faces as they observed her.

"Are you ok?" Ironwood asked again, the only one not registering her silence as anything worrisome.

"I don't need your help." Zama looked up into Ironwood's eyes, speaking the statement without any of the derision or assertiveness that might have carried over in a human voice. Still, it didn't keep Ironwood's happy exterior from crumbling, as he looked confusedly over at the rest of the room for answers.

"Penny," Ruby asked with a hitched whisper, "are you ok?"

"I'm ok," Penny replied incidentally, not looking back at Ruby as she spoke the answer.

"Do you remember me?" Ironwood asked, spreading his arms slightly in a vulnerable posture as he looked down at her.

"You are General James Ironwood of Atlas Central Command," Zama recited, eyes boring into Ironwood's chest as she spoke. "You currently hold the twelfth council seat of the governmental body of the Atlas Republic. You were inducted as General of the combined military forces of Atlas in August 25th of the year 1445; you were discharged from your previous post with full military honors-"

"Penny," Ironwood spoke gently, unwavering strength backing his voice as he put his human hand onto Zama's right shoulder. "I know you know many things, and I'm proud of your accurate memory. But, right now, I want to know, do you remember us? Do you remember the times we spent together?"

Penny was unreadable, standing like a dust statue as she looked up Ironwood.

"You are General James Ironwood," Zama replied. "You were present at my first awakening. You took me out of training to play strategy games with you when the development team wasn't present. You bought me a bow on the annual anniversary of my awakening period: you called it a birthday present."

Ironwood choked out a soft laugh. "You really remember all of that?"

Zama, again, was quiet for a long moment.

"Some… details of my memories before today seem to be missing," Zama answered.

"What?" Ruby asked, stepped forward from the back line she and her friends formed in front of the fireplace.

Zama again was quiet, and took a moment to find her words. "In many of my memories," she said at last, "I recall references being made to objects called emotions, which were apparently aspects of an internal state that I experienced. However, I have no capacity to remember what emotions I was feeling at the moment."

"Can… can you feel emotions now?" Ruby asked.

"I believe so," Zama responded. "I am experiencing things now that I do not remember in my memories, these may be the emotions we were speaking of."

"Are... " Ruby looked at the robot's eternal deadpan. "Are you sure?"

"She can feel emotions," a soft voice answered from the side.

Everyone turned, and Haetzen absolutely wilted under the exposure, crouching lower in her spot on the couch and burying her lower face in the arms she'd folded over her raised knee.

"Really?" Ruby questined. "What's she feeling right now, then?"

"Well, It'd be rude to announce it without asking permission," Haetzen said, burying her face deeper into the folds of her sleeves.

"Are you sure?" Ruby asked, glancing briefly at Zama's stone face.

"I can sense that she has emotions," Haetzen clarified. "She's just suppressing them right now."

"Yes, I thought that would be the best course of action, considering they seemed to inhibit rational action." Zama clarified.

"Can… you not?" Ruby requested. "Inhibit your emotions, that is?"

"I can," Zama answered. And she closed her eyes, looking down with intense focus, as she unlocked something powerful deep within herself, and then opened her eyes back up to that same deadpan.

"Did you stop suppressing?" Ruby asked after a short silence.

"Yes," Zama answered coolly.

"So, then, whyyy-"

"I just don't happen to be feeling any strong emotions at the moment."

"Okay," Ruby scanted her eyebrows. "But… you still remember all the fun times we had, right?" Ruby reached out with a hopeful tone.

"I remember our conversations that made reference to the word 'fun'," Zama replied. "I also remember laughing and initiating games with you, but I do not remember any of the emotions that passed through me at the time. Looking at you now, I do not recall any of those emotions, and I feel no compulsion to speak or engage in any activities with you- at least no more than I would with anyone else. I feel nothing for you." Zama answered cooly, turning her gaze from Ruby and panning it over everyone else. "I feel nothing for any of you."

Everyone fell silent at the conclusion of the announcement, Ruby took a nervous step back, eyes on the verge of tears.

Zama blinked at the sight, and directed her next words at Ruby. "I can detect that you have been hurt, but I felt - judging by the etiquette I remember - that it would be more... respectful of our past friendship, not to attempt to deceive you about the matter."

"But, is it true?" Ruby spoke, forcing herself not to reveal the tears in her voice, as she subtly wiped her nose on her sleeve. "Did you really mean that you don't care about us?"

"I can't care about you," Zama answered, "not like I did in the past."

Ruby, despite her attempts as feigning strength, seemed to teeter now on the edge of a sobbing breakdown. And despite the seriousness of the situation, despite the confidence she had in the authenticity of her friends, some childish, embarrassed part of her still called for her to stifle her cries, afraid that others would laugh when they saw her tears.

At last, however, she let out a single sob.

And then Dr. Polendina burst out laughing.

"Hahahahahaha!" Dr. Polendina laughed, doubling over in his chair as she slapped a knee.

Ruby, thankfully, was too overwhelmed by confusion to misunderstand the intent.

"What?" she asked softly.

"How could I have not seen it before!" Pietro laughed.

"Seen what?" Ionwood asked.

"The microdamage! It was in the read-barrier of her brain!" Polendinga explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "No wonder she's been so confused. She's just been unable to remember what the emotions she's feeling now are called is all!"

Ruby perked up at the joy in his voice. "So, what you're saying is we can fix her!?"

"Easily," Polendina answered. "It'll have to be done in stages over several weeks, but now that we've got her online, we can scan the damage more precisely, and we can patch that up in no time!"

"Can we do the first step now?" Ruby asked.

"Of course!" Pietro answered. "The castle has enough auxiliary power for a scan, I should say. We just need to-"

"No," Zama answered, extending the short word with chitinous reverberations of her voice.

A precipice of despair assaulted the group, and they all looked at her with expressions plainly drawn across their faces.

"What do you mean?" Dr. Polending asked.

"I will not be undergoing the procedure," Zama answered.

"But, Penny," Ruby approached with soft tones, "It's just going to restore your memory. It's nothing to be afraid-"

"I said no!" Zama shouted suddenly, fists clenching as she hunched in on herself with the proclamation, her face twisting into a mask of anger.

Ren stepped back, extending a hand to carry Nora along with him, Pyrrha stepped forward and Ruby, like everyone else, froze.

"But, why?" Ruby asked, almost unheard over the distorted ringing Zama' voice left in her own ears.

"Because," Zama forced out, still staring firmly at the ground below, "if you fix it, then Penny will come back, and I'll be gone."

"But you are Penny," Ruby insisted. "Nothings going to happen to you if we fix your memory!"

"I'm not quite her," Zama bit back with a strange roughness to her voice. "From my memories, we behave quite differently."

"But we just want to restore your memories!" Ruby insisted. "Forgetting things happens all the time! Remembering them is no big deal!"

"I don't want to remember," Zama said.

"You just think that because you can't remember what you used to be like!" Ruby cried out with desperation hugging her voice, tears kissing her eyes. "I just know if you changed back we'd all be-"

"What?" Weiss interrupted her with a poisonous whisper. "We'd all be what? Happy? As long as she changes to be exactly how you'd like her to be?"

"I'm not trying to change herI I'm trying to change her back!" Ruby, for the first time, shouted with unbridled rage at her team mate.

"Then maybe you should stop trying to change her period!" Weiss easily eclipsed Ruby's show, and soon had the girl wincing back from her own charge.

"What are you even saying?!" Nora spoke up, standing behind Ruby. "You hardly even knew Penny!"

"I know how to listen," Weiss retorted, "and Penny," she emphasised the word, "is telling us she doesn't want to change!"

"And I actually care about Penny!" Ruby yelled, flying off the handle. "I just want her back!"

"So you admit she's different now!" Weiss challenged.

"Not in any way that's important!" Ruby answered. "It's just her memories… parts of her memories!"

"If it's not important, then why make the change?" A soft voice interrupted Weiss's louder response. All the parties turned aside, and saw Mr. S sitting hunched on the far couch; his elbows rested on his knees, and the fire light was flickering on his face.

"What?" Ruby said indignantly, with an undercurrent of anger.

"If the change doesn't matter, then no one should care whether it gets done," Mr. S explained. "If it does matter…" he clicked his tongue in wonderment, "then none of us have the right to force Zama to undergo it."

"But-" Ruby started, and then was cut off.

"That's enough." It was Ironwood that spoke, his voice strong despite the catastrophic breakdown that seemed to eat at it so. "That's enough," he repeated, softer. "We won't force you to do anything you don't desire," he said, bowing slightly in Zama's direction. "Please forgive any indiscretions."

And he turned and made a quiet exit.

And it was a notable departure from his standard march, that he lent heavily against the doorframe as he left it, supporting himself against it like a sick man before he turned into the hallway and let the darkness eat him.


Penny burned into her memory that peculiar bend that seemed to press on the General's body as he left the room, which turned his normally stiff, trunklike, posture into a crumbling edifice.

And she recognized that posture in Pyrrha, who was sitting quietly in front of her now, apparently oblivious to Zama's presence on the roof of the Manor.

It was raining, and the large hole Zama had made in the manor's roof seemed particularly inconvenient now, as large streams of runoff poured through it, into the interior.

Zama turned her attention back to Pyrrha, who was sitting on the edge of the roof, on one of the oversized parapets that was guarded on either side by sleeping sentry turrets, and who seemed still to be oblivious to Zama's presence.

"Hello?" Zama asked, approaching close, and placing her hands atop the parapet that Pyrrha sat perched on.

"Hello," Pyrrha smiled at her with subdued sadness. "How have you been?"

"I've been a disappointment, haven't I?" Zama asked, looking up at the girl, and back down at her ebony hands, spread out like charcoal sticks against the white wash of the castle parapet.

"No," Pyrrha said with a genuinely relieved sigh escaping her. "It's us…" she paused, thinking of the right words. "We put all of our expectations onto you, and we were just reminded why It's unfair to do that to a person. You have nothing to be ashamed of, Zama. Your only responsibility is to live your life well, so don't worry about what people like me were foolish enough to think."

"You called me Zama," the girl noted, tilting her head, and sending her curly waves of her bobbing with the motion.

"It felt right," Pyrrha said, looking up to the storm clouds, and feeling the cool rains wash away the jammy blood that covered her skin. "I hope you don't mind."

"I don't," Zama answered. "It feels right to me, too."

"Although," Pyrrha chuckled, "I get the feeling you didn't come here to talk about that."

As she spoke, the energy barrier that domed over the castle flashed a different color, and suddenly the rain stopped, and the sky distorted, as a thin film of water ran over the dome and filtered down over the outer gardens.

Pyrrha laughed. "I guess they finally remembered the hole."

"Yes. They should have set the shield to filter water particles before so much water came in." Zama said.

She had climbed up onto the parapet, now, and let her heavy feet swing out over the edge next to Pyrrha's.

And they sat in the silence, feeling the dank stone laying quietly beneath them, and the muffled sound of rain as it battered against the energy shield.

"I've come to apologize," Zama said at last.

That… took Pyrrha by surprise. She blinked. "You don't need to apologize," she said. "It was just an accident, after all," she gestured to the whitr bandaging that criss-crossed the front of her chest. "Besides, I'm already almost healed u-"

"No," Zama said, with a shameful look pointed down at the outer gardens below. "It wasn't an accident."

Pyrrha remained skeptical, silently looking at Zama as she waited for answers.

"I… I can feel so many emotions, but I can't remember what any of them mean," Zama said at last. "I don't know if what I'm feeling now is anger, or hate, or sadness, I just know it's bad, and I want it to stop."

"Zama," Pyrrha said kindly. "I don't think anyone has the answer to that. You'll learn what emotions you're feeling eventually, but living with them is life. Emotions get the better of everybody-, even me," she encouraged, letting out a small laugh.

Zama was far less cheerful.

"When I woke up," Zama said, "I remembered what it felt like to die."

Pyrrha stopped laughing immediately, and tilted her head, inexpressive at the notion.

"It was like… I was in a dark ocean," Zama said, struggling to come up with the words. "I felt comfortable there, but, as soon as I woke up, I felt very badly that I had to get away from it. I… didn't want to stay there anymore. I really didn't want to stay there anymore." She hugged her knees close to her body, hands shaking as she buried her face down into her legs.

"You… felt scared?" Pyrrha suggested, keeping her words simple.

"Maybe," Zama answered. "But… when I woke up and saw you. I felt another emotion, too. It… it also felt bad, but it was different. I felt compelled to attack you… to make you feel what I'd felt. It didn't last long, and now - whenever I recall how I behaved - I feel another bad emotion, and it's what compelled me to apologize to you, and it also made me feel bad whenever I thought of interacting with you, which is why I waited until now to do so. I'm… not sure what this is. I doubt you've ever felt anything like it," she said. "But, I suppose I just wanted to reiterate that I was sorry, for attacking you wrongly, and for lying to you. I suppose It felt worse, at the time, to tell the truth."

And Pyrrha laughed. "I forgive you, Penny," she said easily.

"Really?" Zama asked with disbelief.

"I really do," Pyrrha nodded, "because I've done exactly that myself."

"Do… do you know what these emotions are called? Especially the… the good one, that I'm feeling right now?"

"Anger, Guilt, Shame, and Relief," Pyrrha counted off, smiling knowingly at the girl.

Zama sat up a little straighter, a hint of a smile at her cheeks, and turned to look more at Pyrrha. "Thank you," she said, with straight sincerity.

And, as she spoke those words, lightning flashed above, and the light filtered through the energy shield, and the thunder washed over their forms, and for an instant Pyrrha swore that Zama's voice had changed, and that the light had changed her appearance so that, for a flashing instant, it was a ghostly apparition of Penny who had said those fatal words.

Pyrrha blinked, wide eyed at what she'd thought she'd seen.

"Is something the matter?" Zama tilted her head, red eyes staring intensely into Pyrrha's teal.

"Nothing," Pyrrha shook hers. "Everything's just fine."

And after all that, a long silence fell, and they passed the next several hours without words.

Eventually, the rain began to subside, and the cloud cover broke to reveal patches of stars that peeked through the dying storm.

"What are you going to do, now that everything's been taken care of?" Pyrrha asked.

"I have asked to become a member of Mr. Schnee's security team," Zama answered.

"Really?" Pyrrha said, failing to hide her surprise at the proclamation.

"It's a good compromise between my desire for independence, and General Ironwood and Dr. Polendina's insistence on my safety. Joining the security team would allow me to acquire relevant combat and security experience while in a controlled environment. I do not expect either of them will countermand the proposal."

"You haven't told them yet?" Pyrrha asked.

"I haven't. You're the first person I've told. I plan to ask Ironwood to put in a good word for me. I imagine he is eager to have me stay in the most well defended palace in the world, even if it is in a security role."

Pyrrha decided not to pull attention to the gaping hole in the roof that stood nearby. "Well, I think it's a very well thought out plan. It's a sign of maturity that you decided to compromise."

"Not really," Zama answered.

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't do this to compromise. I did this to prove myself to them, that I deserve as much freedom and power as Penny. Stopping Farbe didn't do it, so now I'll prove it with the security team."

"You know," Pyrrha said, a sad lilt to her eyes, "you don't have to prove yourself like this all the time, all your life."

"I understand the sentiment. And thank you- for saying that," Zama said, after a long moment of thought. "But I'm going to be the defender of Atlas one day, and I-"

"Have a duty that I'll never be ready to match," Pyrrha finished her sentence for her, a bitter, understanding tone taking her voice.

Zama looked curiously at her.

Pyrrha lifted a hand and created a miniature tornado in the palm, filling the vortex with lightning.

"You're a Maiden," Zama noted, looking down at the spectacle.

Pyrrha chuckled. "I guess we kind of forgot to tell you."

Zama seemed to take new interest in the development; she pointed curious eyes at the display, intense curiosity relighting behind the red eyes.

"Actually, there is one thing I've been meaning to ask you," Zama said.

"What is it?" Pyrrha asked.

"Well, I guess it's hard to describe, but It's just something I've noticed when cycling through the news I missed over the past several months."

"What?" Pyrrha asked.

"And it's just strange because no one has acknowledged it in the time since I awoke."

"Just ask already." Pyrrha snapped, a tinge of annoyance entering her voice.

"Has Mr. Schnee been acting strangely?" Zama asked.