I don't own anything related to the RWBY franchise

Chapter 3 - The Lab

It was approximately three in the morning when a low and insistent thrumming sound roused Jaune from unconsciousness. Conveniently enough, the noise turned out to be the Bullhead's engines being brought to life. With lips that were suddenly as dry as a desert, Jaune leaned out through his pine needle camouflage, to look down at the activity below. One, lone, hard suffering, hanger attendant, was pushing an overlarge crate up the Bullhead's cargo ramp, as the pilot in the cockpit completed her preflight checks. It was clearly business as usual for these two women, which meant that as soon as that cargo hold was closed the Bullhead was going to take off.

The coast would only be clear for a few seconds at the most, and he wasn't going to get a second opportunity. With that in mind, Jaune started warming up his body by wiggling his arms and legs at his sides and manipulating his aura throughout his muscles. He needed to be able to move. He needed to be prepared. It was time, it was time, it was... Now!

As the Hanger attendant walked away from the Bullhead's cargo bay to retrieve another crate from the Hanger, Jaune kicked off the tree trunk as hard as he could, launching himself through the air. He was falling from upwards of ten meters, so he didn't expect to land without taking any damage. He didn't care in the least. He could take it. More important than whatever damage he was about to receive, Jaune needed to land silently, which meant that he needed to spread out his impact as much as possible and keep his vocalizations to a minimum.

For the second time in only a day, Jaune found himself spreading his aura throughout his entire body with no specific aim in mind other than to preserve his current state. He wanted to hold himself together as if he was wearing an armored suit or a shield. There was a very good chance that he was manually forcing his aura to do something that it does automatically, but Jaune didn't want to take any chances. He grabbed ahold of his aura, spread it throughout his entire body like a mold and then grit his teeth as he forced everything to remain in place.

After about five seconds spent falling, Jaune's feet finally made contact with the concrete of the airfield. In an instinctual move to decrease the damage that his legs were about to take, Jaune immediately bent his knees. Then, in the split second that followed, he allowed his body to pitch forward, dropped his right shoulder into a roll, rolled again and just kept rolling as he clenched his mouth around the pain. Several small cracks and pops met his ears as his bones bent and fractured, but Jaune knew right away that his injuries were nowhere near as bad as they should've been. Then, when he pushed himself back up to his feet, he found that he could still walk, if with a limp in his right leg. It was far more than he deserved after the stunt that he'd just pulled.

Biting down on a strong desire to whimper in pain, Jaune hugged his dislocated left arm and hobbled up the ramp into the Bullhead. He'd done it. He'd managed to get inside his getaway vehicle without getting caught. Now all he needed to do was find a decent spot to hide. That Hanger Attendant would be back any second with another crate, and Jaune needed to make himself invisible before that happened. Looking around the cargo bay, Jaune cast out for anything that might serve as a shelter.

Then he saw it and his blood ran cold...

To the back of the cargo hold, there was a webbing covered crate that was full to the brim with some very familiar glowing crystals. They were the same exact crystals that were removed from his aura suppression collar every morning. They were also the commodity that was being shipped to whatever destination this Bullhead was heading. His aura... Years and years of Jaune's collected aura, was being used as a fuel source or a battery of some kind... Shit. Dammit!

Very suddenly Jaune was losing it. How dare his parents benefit from his captivity! How dare they use his aura without his permission! As his current reality settled back onto his shoulders, Jaune remembered that he definitely didn't have the time to have a temper tantrum. Launching himself towards the crate of crystals, Jaune pulled the webbing aside, slipped inside and submerged himself as much as possible. He wiggled and squirmed until he was deep within the crystals and then he raked the webbing so that it would be back to its original position. He didn't stop wiggling his body lower until his butt was pressing against the bottom of the crate and the bulk of the crystals were on top of him.

Not even fifteen seconds later, a grunting and groaning sound notified Jaune that the Hanger Attendant was pushing a second crate up into the cargo hold. He held his breath in order to lay perfectly still, forced his mind to calm, and he waited. The grunting and groaning came closer along with the dull nails on chalkboard sound that the crate was creating against the floor. Finally, with a sigh of accomplishment, the Hanger Attendant wiped her hands clean and shuffled back down the access ramp. Less than two minutes later, the cargo bay door was closing all by itself and the Bullhead engines were starting to pick up.

Very quietly from within his crate, Jaune started completely freaking out. He'd done it! He was free! He was getting away! Hundreds of new freedoms and just as many fears suddenly became far more realistic than they'd ever been in the past, but Jaune was finally free, and he was also making plans. First things first... He needed to decide whether or not it was worth the risk to find out what his aura was powering...

Over the next three hours, Jaune found himself trailing off into a semi-conscious doze, as his aura attempted to heal his various injuries and fight off a strong bought of persistent motion sickness. The only company that he had was the aura crystals resting against his body, that pulsed, seemingly with a life all of their own.

As scientist and inventor Pietro Polendina pushed a hover sled down a service hallway, he found himself frowning in a very out of character fashion.

During the ten plus years that he'd spent working for the Atlesian Military, he'd found himself repeatedly at loggerheads with the Senior Officer that amounted to both his boss and his patron. While Pietro and General James Ironwood did get along so far as personalities went, Pietro was very liberal by nature and that consistently caused a rift between the two of them. Over and over again, Pietro found himself hurling bitchy little one liners at the General, regarding Atlas's resource collection policies, specifically the waste they accrued and the immoral work practices they allowed. He beleaguered his employer to do something, anything, about social issues such as the systematic exploitation of the Faunus by the SDC (Schnee Dust Company). He vehemently proclaimed that any nation that can't stand truly united against its enemies doesn't deserve to stand at all.

Pietro had continued to make these arguments despite the fact that his employer was essentially powerless to change anything. It was an unfair situation to put the General in, both because the man was firmly entrenched within a strict military chain of command and because the Grimm didn't give a damn about social justice. The creatures of the Grimm were pressing in on every side, and it was only the advent of dust technology that was keeping them at bay.

Dust barriers protected humanities' walls and foundations, Dust cannons and guns made up humanities' offensive arsenal, Dust fueled every airship that flew or tank that rolled, Dust fought Grimm borne diseases and Dust healed the injured. The unstable elements contained within dust comprised the single most vital weapon humanity possessed in the war against the Grimm. Dust meant survival. It could come as no surprise that General Ironwood wasn't picky about how such a precious commodity was collected.

No. Pietro didn't truly expect his patron to pull off some miracle of social reform under their current circumstances. In fact, the real reason that he was currently scowling wasn't because of General Ironwood at all. It was because of how his current actions were flying in the face of his ideals.

At the moment, Pietro was on his way to his lab's airship complex, where he was about to pick up a rather large stockpile of an extremely rare substance. Any minute from now, he was going to take custody of a full crate of retrofitted dust crystals that were filled to capacity with aura.

Pietro wasn't even going to try to fool himself into thinking this aura had been given voluntarily. There wasn't a single person on all of Remnant who would sacrifice approximately fifteen years' worth of their aura of their own free will. Someone, somewhere, was being held captive, where they were being systematically drained of their aura like a human battery. The very idea that a human could have the light of their soul stripped away from their body made Pietro shiver in an almost instinctual form of revulsion. On the other hand, he considered what these crystals could provide him of absolutely vital importance, so he wasn't going to ask any questions.

In the end, there was no use denying what his current actions were revealing about his character. Pietro Polendina was a self-righteous, amoral, hypocrite...

Putting his emotional turmoil aside for the moment, Pietro descended an access ramp to the airfield and looked out to the pre-dawn skyline. He was right on time. While at the moment it was only a black dot on the horizon, the Bullhead that contained his package was already there, approaching at a rather slow and deliberate speed. Pietro tried to be patient. His laboratory was located deep within the confines of an Atlesian military base, which meant that the pilot of that Bullhead would be following some pretty specific directions. Nonetheless, Pietro found himself drumming the arms of his grav sled in impatience. It didn't help.

Finally, no less than fifteen minutes later, the Bullhead was finally settling onto the tarmac of the airfield and the cargo bay door of the Bullhead was lowered to the tarmac. Pietro didn't wait for a Hanger Attendant to arrive before he got to work. He'd come with a grav sled of his own and a strong desire to skip all of the paperwork. The cargo in this Bullhead was his burden to bear alone. He had zero interest in involving other people.

Pushing the Grav Sled up the ramp, Pietro entered the poorly lit recesses of the cargo bay. Turning on the lights wasn't going to be necessary, because there were only two crates within and both had been requisitioned purely to be used in his lab. The most finicky part would be moving the crates onto his sled without upsetting their contents. He had a remote on hand that would let him control the airfield's robotic grav lift. The problem wasn't that he didn't know how to operate the appendage (He'd designed the damned thing in the first place), The problem was that he had no finesse with the machine whatsoever. He was clumsy by nature and that clumsiness reflected in the jerky and spastic movements of the robot arm. Nevertheless, Pietro soon had both of the crates sitting on the grav sled, with only minor amounts of wear and tear on their wooden surfaces.

Whistling in satisfaction, Pietro began pushing the rather beaten up crates through the halls leading back towards his lab. His earlier moral dilemma was long forgotten now that he was free to make progress in his project. It was time. Hot damn, it was time to create a life...

Ouch. Whoever just unloaded the crate that Jaune was hiding in was not the gentle type. His freshly aura regenerated body was feeling distinctly beaten up again after being shaken like a stone in a bucket and then dumped onto a sled at near terminal velocity. Thankfully, he'd managed to keep his pained moans to a minimum and hadn't been overheard. The last thing he needed right now was to allow the sadistic person operating the robot arm to notice whimpering coming from within his delivery. He needed to tough it out until this mystery person had to use the bathroom or something.

The trip through the various halls of the laboratory was both uneventful and uninformative. Jaune tried to stealthily peer out through the crystals surrounding his body, but he didn't see anything but smooth white walls and blinding florescent lights. Sterile was the word that immediately came to mind. The facility was completely devoid of life. It was an atmosphere that made sense considering the fact that these people were willing to make use of another person's aura power to fuel their projects. Jaune figured that the staff here would have to be very cold and scientific if they were willing to commit such an atrocity. Well, no matter. Jaune would never have to get to know them. He was going to get out of here as soon as an opportunity presented itself.

When a larger than normal door loomed up over the crate that Jaune was hiding in, he gulped at what he was looking at. There was a dual biometric scanner, pin code entry panel next to this door that would be a bitch and a half to rewire. It wasn't that Jaune couldn't figure it out, the problem was that it would take time and it would set off Tamper alarms on the Security system. This was going to be rough...

After placing his hand on the biometric scanner, a stocky scientist type punched in a long series of numbers and the door began sliding open. Jaune felt his body beginning to tremble in anxiety as the five inch-thick solid steel doors slid back into place with a sharp pneumatic hiss. It was official. He was trapped again. The only significant difference this time was that his captors weren't aware of him yet. He had an advantage this time. He also had his aura. Now he needed to make a plan...

Smash, smash, smash!

Or not...

Jaune's crate had just been unceremoniously dumped off of the antigravity sled it'd been resting on and its contents had been spilled all over the floor of the lab. Unfortunately, that included Jaune, who found himself sprawled out on the ground at a gaping scientist's feet.

Jaune stared up at the scientist, the scientist stared down at Jaune. Slowly but surely Jaune collected a few of the aura crystals in his hands and waited for the scientist to attack. He didn't.

"It's you, isn't it," the scientist asked in a deadly serious whisper. "It's your aura contained within these crates."

Since the scientist didn't look threatening, Jaune took a moment to look around the rest of the lab. No one. They were alone. He didn't want to do it but Jaune figured he could kill this man if he had to. Rising to his feet, Jaune squared up into the closest approximation of a fighting stance as he knew.

In the moments that followed, the scientist looked alarmed that Jaune was showing signs of hostility, and he floundered clumsily to push a button on a remote that he was carrying. All of the sudden and all at once, an absurd amount of robotic guns and laser cannons appeared from within the lab's walls to train their sites on him.

Well... Damn...

Jaune's hands slowly dropped back to his sides as he realized that the fight was already over. The only chance he'd ever had was to attack the scientist before the man even knew that he was there. It would seem Jaune wasn't cold and calculating enough. He wasn't bloodthirsty enough. He'd lost his one and only opportunity. Now his situation had changed dramatically, and Jaune found himself casting out for reasons that he shouldn't be killed outright. Then he thought of something and he felt his heart start to pound within his chest. He didn't like what he was about to do, but it didn't seem like he had a choice in the matter. He had to tell the truth...

"I..I'm the... source... of the aura contained within these crystals," Jaune admitted in a meek little voice, while looking down at his feet. "I finally managed to escape my captors by stowing away within that crate. I'll do... anything... to keep from going back to those... people. I've been strapped to a large metallic chair by thick leather straps every single day since I was only seven years old. I've been kept captive for over half of my life, while those crystals have been extracting all of my aura."

While Jaune was massively misrepresenting just how long a time he spent strapped to a chair everyday, his words were all technically accurate, and he was attempting to garner some sympathy. Now it was time to see if his ploy was getting him anywhere with the scientist... Looking back up at the unknown man's face, Jaune was unbelievably surprised by what he found.

The scientist was weeping thick torrents of tears that were dripping into the cardigan under his lab coat. Soon enough, the man collapsed to the concrete of the floor, sobbing openly. Judging by how enthusiastic and honest the man's weeping was, it didn't look like he was going to stop anytime soon.

Monty Oum. This scientist was clearly a softy on a monumental scale... Jaune felt his heart rate slowing down again as he took a seat on the floor in front of the man and patted his shoulder consolingly. Very suddenly, he wasn't all that concerned about getting sent back to the castle...

"I'm... I'm so sorry." The Scientist blubbered as he wiped his lab coat against his eyes. "I knew. I knew that it had to be something like that, but I was too fixated on getting my hands on the aura crystals to look any further! I'm a terrible person!"

"Shhh, it's okay, it's alright, Jaune soothed, in the same calming voice that he used on his sisters when they were upset. "I'm sure there's a good reason for your actions, and you aren't the person who made my captors do what they've done. If my aura didn't go to you then it would've gone to someone else instead. At the very least you don't appear to want to send me back."

"No, never, I could never," the scientist cried out, as if he was horrified by the thought. "Strapped to a chair and stripped of your soul for over half of your life! I could never take part in that. It's... it's abhorrent! It was bad enough when I thought it was an adult that was being drained, but a child, a seven-year-old child! It's too much!"

For the next couple of minutes, Jaune just sat there with his legs crossed, patting a middle aged scientist on the back. As surreal as the situation was, he was extremely happy with this outcome and wouldn't have changed a thing. Finally, the scientist appeared to be calming down, and Jaune figured it was time for him to appeal to the man.

"Since you appear to mean me no harm," Jaune hedged quietly. "I was hoping that I could make a deal with you. I want you to shelter me and arrange an identity for me. I don't care about luxury as long as I can experience some personal freedoms. I also don't expect charity. I don't know precisely what level of education I have if I'm being perfectly honest, but I do understand the mechanisms behind most of the machinery within this room."

The scientist looked up from his hands and stared at Jaune with a confused expression. "You... You have an education?"

The scientist appeared to be a little bit skeptical, and Jaune wasn't surprised. The man clearly thought that he'd been strapped to a chair doing nothing for the last seven years. "Yes, I'm extremely well read," Jaune assured the man with a nod. "I've spent a not inconsiderable amount of my life reading textbooks and technical manuals and such to stave off boredom."

"I suppose they would need to provide consistent stimulus if they desired to keep the subject sane and healthy," the scientist mused as if to himself. Then he looked up at Jaune and nodded his head. "Well, you needn't worry about going back to where you came from. I have no intention of revealing your presence here in my lab. However... It is going to be a bit tricky getting you out of here..."

"High security laboratory in the middle of a Military installation," Jaune guessed with a sigh...

"Yes... How did you know?" The scientist looked impressed, but he also looked just a little bit wary.

"That door that we just came through was state of the art security tech, I can't imagine a civilian facility that would have any interest in harnessing aura energy, and I have about twelve different automated weapon platforms aimed at me as we speak," Jaune explained in a casual voice.

"Uh... Oh, oh, dear me, I'm sorry again!" As quickly as possible the scientist depressed a button on his remote and the weapons around the room retracted back into their hidden cubbies.

That's fine," Jaune assured the man with a wave. "I just wanted you to understand how I might have guessed..."

"No, yes, I mean I understand," the scientist assured with a wave. "You're also correct. For now, at least, you'll have to remain here in my lab, until I can arrange a fake identity for you."

That's about what I expected," Jaune began, as he rose to his feet and offered his hand. "My apologies. Circumstances being what they are, I haven't had the opportunity to introduce myself yet. On the other hand, I don't think it's wise for you to learn my real name. I'll have to fashion a pseudonym for myself so that I can stop being rude."

"I can see why you might feel that way," the scientist assured in a quiet voice. "My name is Dr. Pietro Polendina. I'm an inventor under the employ of the Atlas military."

"I see... While I think about a name I can use, I have several questions I'd like to ask, if you don't mind." Jaune gestured at the crystals at their feet. "Let's start with this. Why do you have such a need for my aura energy?"

For the very first time since Jaune met Pietro, the man smiled and it completely transformed his face. "Ah that's right. I forgot because we never get visitors here. By now she'll be just dying of curiosity. I have someone to introduce to you"

Jaune looked all around the wide open and expansive laboratory, looking for anyone or anything that might be described as being either curious or a girl. He didn't see anything.

"Hah. Heheh. Sorry. I'm sure you think I'm completely insane at this point, but rest assured. There is actually a young lady in the room with us." With a wave of his hand, Pietro gestured for Jaune to follow him to a huge bank of computers in the corner. "This here is Penny. At first I was going to make her name a clever acronym that defines what manner of life she is, but then I decided not to be a jerk."

Stepping forward, Jaune saw green writing scrolling across one of the computer screens. The computer screen was directly attached to a camera, so it could be inferred that he was being captured on some kind of pattern recognition software. The green text was scrolling up the screen very quickly. It was as if the intelligence generating the words was unused to thinking as slowly as a human being or alternatively that it was extremely hyperactive. Jaune found himself staring in open mouthed wonder at what he saw taking place on the computer screen.

Hi. Hello. My name is Penny. I'm still young, but I'm going to be a real girl someday! I can see the entire lab on the camera interface set up next to this computer screen, so I saw the circumstances of your arrival. Please don't judge my daddy too harshly. He just wants what's best for me.

My daddy says that the aura your captors provide helps me become much more than the sum of my parts. He also says that it will keep him from hurting himself while making me a reality. I'm not sure precisely what my daddy means by hurting himself, but I hope you can help him nonetheless. I don't want my daddy to get hurt. I also want to exist beyond the limited form that I currently possess. As you can see, I am the proud owner of a conflict of interest for the very first time! I'm even prouder to find that I'd rather keep my daddy safe than evolve into a more complicated life-form. Self-sacrifice is a characteristic that my daddy approves of, so I'm happy that I can embody this trait even without a body!

Anyway, I'm thrilled to meet you! You're actually the first adolescent human that I have ever met. You're so thin and tall and hairless and beaten up! It is all so very interesting and new! I wonder if we can be considered of similar ages when you take into consideration how different we are. At the moment, I am a vast stockpile of information that daddy gifted both consciousness and an aura using his semblance. I'm not yet fully developed and neither are you. We are, in a sense, both children.

Over the next half a year, I am going to be given a body, which is mostly possible because of the aura that you have provided. According to my daddy, the more of your aura I receive, the more organic they can strive to make my body. Originally, my consciousness was going to be put into a robot body, and I was satisfied with that. Now, it's been explained to me that with your aura energy, they can attempt to merge my cybernetic intelligence with real living nerves and synapses. I am not a human and technically I never will be. What I can become, is a cybernetic organism built from a mixture of inorganic material, nanotechnology and human tissues grown using a custom-tailored genetic code. In the end, I'm going to be almost indistinguishable from a human, right down to the most inconsequential little details.

I find it all very fascinating and I can't wait to take part!

By the time Jaune was finished reading the bulk of the text scrolling upwards on the screen, he was sitting down and breathing quickly. This was big. This was...

"Incredible," Jaune whispered, into the stone silent room. Then he shook out his head and he smiled at the camera. "Hello Penny. My name's Ja... John. John... Freeman. I'm excited to meet you as well. You are, bar none, the most awe inspiring girl I have ever met. Although, I have to admit, I have led a pretty closeted existence. I'm amazed by you for several different reasons, but mostly because your optimism and innate warmth can be felt even through a text window. You Penny, are already adorable, even without a body."

While leaning back in the chair, Jaune drew in a deep breath and rubbed his hand over his cheeks. During that time, he saw a rather large smiley face scroll up the screen, completely comprised of the word happy written over and over again. Smiling in return, he turned towards Dr. Polendina and gave the man a significant look. "How can I help."

"You already have," Dr. Polendina said, while pointing at the hundreds and hundreds of aura crystals scattered across the floor. "You see, when I give up my aura into an object through my Semblance, I never get it back. It becomes a separate entity to me entirely. It becomes its own source of animation. In the past, I animated a few robots and they were useful, but it always left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Now, I want to create a life. I want to do the responsible thing for the new soul that I've helped create. At first, I was committed to injecting as much of myself as necessary to integrate Penny's consciousness into the body of a robot. Now, with the help of this unbelievable overabundance of aura, I can create something quite a bit more genuine for her."

"And your body," Jaune asked, as he twisted in his seat. "How does your semblance hurt you?"

"It doesn't hurt me at all, if my creation is eventually destroyed," Dr. Polendina explained as he sat down in a nearby chair. "I think my Semblance is designed to make short term golems out of robots that are far more versatile and powerful than your standard robot. When these golems get destroyed, the aura that I've implanted into them is eventually returned to my body. The problem is that I'm not a Huntsman. My personality isn't suited for such a rough and ready lifestyle and I love all of my creations. I don't want to create a life just to watch it sacrifice itself for me. I want to cherish my creations and I consider Penny my daughter. What this means is whatever aura I implant into her, is going to become aura that I will never have access to in the future. It also weakens me physically, in a way that is separate from my aura capacity."

"Does my aura really help?" Jaune didn't have Dr. Polendina's Semblance. He wasn't sure any amount of his aura could help give life to an inanimate object.

"I know what you're thinking, but I've already made use of some of your aura in the past and it was immensely helpful," Dr. Polendina assured. "Do you know what your Semblance is, by the way?"

After shrugging his shoulders, Jaune decided to use his words. "Sorry no. I have no idea. I've only had access to my aura for a little under half a day."

"Well then you'll be interested to know that your aura interacts with its surroundings in absolutely amazing ways," Dr. Polendina explained, with that newly familiar smile on his face again. "Your aura saturates flawlessly inside of every single material that I've ever arranged for it to make contact with, and it can bind things together at sizes much smaller than merely the cellular level. It's the nature of your aura that has me attempting to assimilate Penny's consciousness into an extremely complex amalgamation of cloned material and cybernetics. I'm only speculating here, but I suspect you have an emitter type Semblance, and I wouldn't be surprised if you can heal or bolster other people's aura with your own. I don't think that's all that you can do with it though. I don't want you to make light of what you might be able to accomplish by making use of inorganic materials or even particle sized matter."

By this point, Jaune was staring at Dr. Polendina, slack jawed, wide eyed and breathless. He had never, in his entire life, had so much information just handed to him in such a straightforward and useful manner. The fact of the matter was this unexpected goldmine of insight almost had him overwhelmed with emotion. After choking back a hiccup and pressing his trembling hands into the armrests of his chair, Jaune drew in a very deep breath. "Dr. Polendina," he began in a voice thick with meaning. "I would be very interested in taking part in Penny's development. I would also be very grateful if you would teach me what you know about my aura. I'm beginning to think that I fell out of that crate for a reason."

Stepping closer to the computer, Dr. Polendina looked at the words rapidly scrolling up its surface for several seconds. Then he smiled and turned back towards a very nervous John Freeman. "Penny likes you," he pointed out, as if that was the only factor that mattered. "I think you're right... John. I think there's a lot we can achieve together. Welcome aboard."

Launching to his feet in enthusiasm, "John" pumped an arm up into the air. "Yes. Awesome. What can I do first?"

"First, we have to pick up over two thousand aura crystals," Dr. Polendina pointed out in a rueful tone of voice. "Then, I'd like you to get to know Penny better and explain what it feels like to be a young person. Penny only knows me and another old man that funds my research. I want her to get to know someone near the age that I'm going to be making her."

"You won't be giving her a child's body then," Jaune mused out loud. "You don't want her to age like a human, so the process of maturing is counterproductive?"

"You're very quick," Dr. Polendina replied in an impressed sounding voice. "No. Yes. Well kind of. Penny will age when she decides to age. I've incorporated the ability to age into her programming for when she's ready to experience real human mortality. Until that very far off time, she will remain young. What I want to avoid is having to add dozens of segments into her skeletal system as she grows. You see, her brain and skeletal system will be the only part of her body that is mostly inorganic. These will be the parts of her that make her a cybernetic organism and they will make her far more versatile a being than a human can ever hope to be."

"She's a good girl," Jaune complimented, in a voice laden with curiosity. She's both empathetic and vivacious, which aren't really character traits that I'd expect from even an extremely sophisticated A.I. Is that in her programming or..."

"While ethics and good moral values were a part of Penny's initial programming, a lot of her character has to do with the aura that helped her achieve consciousness," Dr. Polendina replied with a proud smile on his face. "When I first received a sample of your aura, I was assured that you were a good person and well-liked by those around you. It was important to me that the aura I use be from a person with a decent character. While, for the most part, Penny's aura takes after mine, it has also been affected by yours. I don't think it would be too far off to call you her mother, but I think for simplicity sake we're going to refer to you as her brother.

A wide and entertained smile slowly slipped onto Jaune's face as he thought about gaining yet another sister. It appeared that he could try to avoid siblings all he wanted, but the world had other plans. Still... Penny was special and that much was obvious right away. She was an A.I. consciousness, stuck in a computer bank, and yet she had all that energy and enthusiasm. With his education and technical knowhow, Jaune found himself excited to help make Penny's body a reality. He also found that he enjoyed what his aura had been used to accomplish up until now. This felt like the silver lining for the years of captivity that he'd endured.

Without any more hesitation, Jaune ran across the room to grab a broom and a dust pan. It was time to earn his keep.