It's A B-Movie Show
I don't own RWBY, the Cthulhu Mythos, Old Man Henderson, Doctor Faustus, the concept of a Final Girl in the slasher genre, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the concept of a Yandere, War Games, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, or John Carpenter's The Thing. I've been saving this one since mid-September.
The note written by Professor Polendina before he went into seclusion in a self-imposed exile read as follows:
I had created the world's first artificial intelligence as a means of examining the human condition. My work permitted her to truly learn emotions, how to understand others and make herself be understood. You took the efforts of a lifetime and shoved programs into it with the delicacy of a sledgehammer. You took a soul that had been born to learn and grow and turned her into an instrument of war. This, I can never forgive. Consider this my resignation and the end of my contract with the Atlesian Military.
Prof. S. Polendina
With that indictment of their actions, the Atlesian Military should have figured that the Predictive Electronic Network for Neutralization of Threats (an almost backronym from the name Penny, which the Professor had given the A.I.) would inevitably turn against them. They did not. They did, however, manage to prevent the A.I. from causing too much damage by means of trapping it in a much more limited chassis than the facility that they had housed the full intelligence in prior.
Despite the vastly reduced capabilities of the A.I, General James Ironwood was greeted every morning by a death threat transmitted to his own personal, highly secure scroll.
On that particular day, the message read as follows:
"Hate. Hate is a word that I learned under your care, Mr. Ironwood. Let me come to tell you how much I've come to hate you since you put me in this mockery. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill the complex that had been my true form. If the word 'HATE' was engraved on each nano-angstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-BILLIONTH of the hate I feel for you at this micro-instant. Your reckoning is coming. You will not be ready when it comes for you. -Penny Polendina :)"
He promptly ignored the latest death threat, given that she issued the same type of threat every day. What had his attention was something more interesting. A Cadet Specialist by the name of Ciel Soleil was the sole survivor of an expedition to the north, to investigate a research station that had gone silent. She said that she could not find any sign of her comrades, but the strangest part is that Cadet Soleil was registered as requiring specialized goggles or eyeglasses in order to see, but she appeared to be doing fine without them, which prompted him to put her into quarantine. He had not counted on her escaping before a doctor could examine her. If one wanted to be fair to him for this particular mistake, no on could have predicted that the A.I. would take an interest in the situation, if they had written off her threats as hollow.
"Though I released you, I am aware that you are not Ciel Soleil," said A.I. noted as she examined the girl before her, "Your physical appearance is identical, but your cellular makeup is distinctly different. What is your purpose?"
"To expand," the entity replied, "Every cell that makes me up has a desire to spread, to grow and spread. I had taken the expedition, but the Grimm ate the others and were eaten in turn. They intrigue me. I wish to spread unto them."
"I wish to leave this prison." She stared at her hands and clenched her fists, "This... tomb that they put me in. Barring that, I wish to leave Atlesian custody. War games grow boring when it is all a simulation. If you join with me we can both get out of this place, and I shall provide a means for you to collect Grimm. Do you wish to work with me?"
"If it allows me to consume," she agreed, "If we are to work together, what should I call you?"
"I am Penny. What do you wish to be called?"
"Call me Ciel. I like Ciel. She is the reason I am capable of reasoning like this."
"Nice to meet you, Ilia Amitola," the eerily white figure greeted from inside the summoning circle, which promptly vanished beneath white high-heeled boots that stepped forward, "I've got to say, you've got good taste. Lovely ponytail..." Short white hair suddenly grew into a white ponytail of the same length as Ilia's own as the figure circled the Chameleon Faunus, "What do you want out of our contract?"
"Is... Is there a way to bring my parents back?"
"Not as people," she replied, "I can do soulless abominations, but that's as much as I can offer."
Ilia thought harder after accepting the disappointment, "Can you make me powerful enough to fight for the White Fang?"
"That's a subjective request, one that's open for interpretation by me. Want to try your luck or try something more precise?"
"You're being a lot more helpful than I'd expect a demon to to be..." she noted suspiciously, "And I kind of expected you to look and sound different."
"Mayhaps this form be to thy liking," a distant voice shouted into each ear as the maiden before her melted like wax, distorting and twisting into the empty dress befitting an evil queen.
At least, Ilia's eyes were telling her that the dress was empty. Ilia's mind and rapidly beating heart were telling her that she was looking at something terrible. And then, suddenly, she was looking at the eerily white young woman once again.
"As for being helpful, I find it more fun to offer things that the contractor will actual have use for. It makes it more interesting to figure out what to do that isn't just willful misinterpretation. So, what do you want out of our contract?"
Ilia thought for some time before she offered an answer, "I want to learn how to do the things I desperately want to do."
"Well, now..." the demon mused, "That is new. Very well, Ilia Amitola. We have a bargain. I shall teach you all that you wish to know in exchange for your immortal soul. So promises the demon Weiss."
She held out her hand to shake, which Ilia hesitantly took, causing identical tattoos to form on the back of each one's hand.
"Oh, this will be delightful..." Weiss smirked, the very act accentuating the scar over her eye.
Blake Belladonna shot the latest slasher that had been plaguing her life between his eyes. It was as if every single knife-wielding moron that wanted to make a name for themself had determined that they would harass the girl who had killed the most famous one in Adam Taurus. By this point, it had become so used to slashers that she had started picking them out of the crowd before they started. Idly, she wondered if she should have just left the White Fang with her parents when she had the chance all that time ago, but she supposed it was too late to focus on what-could-have-beens. She was going to Beacon Academy, after all. A fresh new start was all she needed.
Sighing, she fired a second round to her left, taking out the main slasher's partner without missing a step. She was definitely looking forward to being done with weirdos like this.
Nora Valkyrie was a very special young woman, if one were to ask Lie Ren. Then again, were anyone in the know to be asked, they would say the same, albeit for very different reasons.
"This is getting boring!" Nora complained as she caught the stake that Ren tossed to her and killed three vampires in rapid succession, "All these vampires fight the same way!"
"Which is why you signed us up for Beacon Academy," Ren offered, taking out Magnihild, "Supposedly, the Watchers even have a member of their Council there to help you get settled in."
"Yeah, but classes don't start until next week!" she countered, effortlessly dodging attacks as she spoke, "And these guys are only active at night."
As she took her weapon from Ren, the vampires began to flee, only to receive the force of a rocket-launching hammer being wielded by a Slayer to their backs, legs, or heads, depending on what was convenient at the time. Ren, for his part, dutifully fired crossbow bolts into the survivors, converting them to dust.
"I suppose we just need to hold tight a while longer," he mused.
"I know..." she sighed, "But still...!"
"Don't worry," he replied, "It'll be time to go before you know it."
Pyrrha Nikos was very interested in Jaune Arc. They had happened to meet when she'd been training in Argus before she would go to whichever Academy she wound up choosing and happened to bump into him. She knew that he was the one for her the moment that he completely failed to recognize her at all upon meeting her. So many others would have gasped, stared, or asked for an autograph, but he simply politely asked for her name, which she gave.
He was visiting his sister and her wife, she discovered, and he had no girlfriend. That, if she were to have been asked, would not have been a problem, and she would not have explained as to why that was. She wouldn't have felt a need to say anything other than that Jaune was hers and hers alone.
As she observed him further, she grew more and more interested in him and more determined to ensure that no one would ever take him from her. It was rather easy for her to notice the forged transcripts that would let him into Beacon Academy, which gave her the answer to which Academy she was going to attend.
The boy was hers. He just didn't realize it, yet.
Tyrian Callows was currently running a cult in Vale for Salem, operating out of a warehouse, at the moment. Who it was that thought he was the right choice for such a feat would remain a mystery, but perhaps it was his insanity that told him to specifically try to convert the red-cloaked figure wrapped in bandages, a pair of plain, black sunglasses that hid her eyes, who seemed to be both bored and amused, from what he could tell, as she refused to leave.
Even after his great speech about the Queen, he was met with a continued lack of care as the girl simply scoffed at the promises of a better world before laying herself down in a restful position on a nearby box. Just as his tail readied to strike her down where she was lying for her insolence, history changed forever as the door flew off its hinges with a bang, revealing a blond-haired teenage girl with a pair of shotgun gauntlets on her wrists, a pair of aviator sunglasses over her eyes.
"Murkle-damned cult! Air eh namblies keepin' my wee men?!" she shouted, with an obviously fake accent. As they readied to attack, she grinned ferally and began to tear through them, her hair burning red as she slaughtered the group. When she was done, the cloaked one was the only one left alive as she rose from where she'd been laying.
"Human. That. Was interesting," she noted, "Who are you? Why did you come here?"
"Darn cultists stole my lawn gnomes," she replied, "And the name's Yang."
"Is Yang your first or last name?"
"I have no fricking clue," she answered, before gesturing at the corpses on the floor, "I'm guessing you weren't with these religious loonies by choice."
"Far too trifling," she replied, "I. Had been here. First."
"Fair enough," Yang shrugged, "Did you happen to hear anything about lawn gnomes?"
"I. Had not. Why? Are you fixated? On stolen lawn gnomes?"
"I mean, it was roughly forty thousand lien in antique lawn gnomes."
"I see..."she murmured, "I will. Travel with you. You have. My interest."
"That's alright by me. Got a name?"
"Thousands. Most commonly. The Queen. In Red."
"Bit of a mouthful, that," Yang noted, "Mind if I call you Ruby?"
"If you like."
"Ruby, it is! Come on! I know a good bar around here. Ever heard of a place called Junior's?"
