Vasily looked at the simple dilapidated department. He had expected far more extravagance from his employer. Terrorists hardly ever settled themselves in the lap of luxury but this was positively depressing.
He turned an eye down the dim shady street spotting his target. A middle aged faunus man walked into the apartment, a reptilian tail swaying behind him as he walked carrying a paper sack full of groceries. He followed him through the door and up the stairs climbing floor after floor behind him.
As they reached the fifth floor he approached his room number 503. He fumbled with his keys for a moment to unlock the door balancing his grocery bag in one arm as he turned the key on the shabby lock.
Vasily approached him from behind ready to pounce on the unsuspecting man. The door swung open and the man turned leveling a pistol right at Vasily.
From inside the apartment Bonnie stepped out pressing a stun gun right into his neck. Vasily stepped forward and grabbed the pistol by the barrel twisting it out of his weak grip and helping Bonnie shuffle him in through the door and closing it behind him.
They threw him onto an old worn couch and Vasily raised the pistol at him. It was a cheap simple snub nose revolver and Vasily already missed his personal revolver. Sadly it had been lost in his last fight with Arc, damn him.
"You really should have better security," Vasily mocked as he recovered from his stunned state rubbing the burn marks on his neck.
"Vasily?" His employer said looking up fearfully at him, "What are you doing here?"
"I thought I'd pop in, collect my money for killing that android and see if I could borrow a few things," he explained to him watching as Bonnie walked to the cover where a collection of old computer monitors and holo screens connected to a massive collection of towers humming as their cooling fans kept them from overheating.
He looked at Bonnie familiarizing herself with his computers. "We weren't ever supposed to meet Vasily, if you want money I can just wire it to your account," he said, his brow glistened with sweat, "how did you even find me?'
Vasily laughed giving a glance to Bonnie, "Oh I keep tabs on all my employers," he explained, "not that you made it too hard, you left some rather sizable digital footprints that Bonnie could find, you really spend too much time on your computer Kalt Eideche."
Kalt's eyes widened as he heard his own name, "How did you-?"
"Your old friends in the White Fang aren't as closed lipped as you might think," Vasily told him with a grin, "Honestly I'm surprised you managed to get this whole thing together, Ironwood is probably going bald to think about how this started."
"It's the digital age," Kalt explained, "When the Atlas branch of the White Fang dissolved I thought I had to do something with all the funds and equipment Adam Taurus had sent."
Vasily chuckled, "So you outsourced to a bunch of criminals and a couple of assassins," Vasily finished finding the idea so amusing.
"And drones," Kalt added in giving glances to Bonnie who kept typing away at his computer.
"Were you really hoping to accomplish anything? Other than attracting hordes of grimm and irritating General Ironwood?" Vasily asked him.
"I was hoping other groups might take advantage of the chaos," Kalt explained to him, "if you and Flex had done your job and eliminated huntsmen it might have happened."
Vasily laughed, "Something might have happened if Flex had succeeded in disposing of Ironwood," he said.
"I paid him millions up front," Kalt explained.
"You mistake," Vasily told him, "First you should have overpaid me to take him down, it wouldn't have been money wasted."
"I thought differently considering what happened after you tried going after Penny," He explained, "and pray tell what was my second mistake?"
"Showmanship," Vasily said, "Terrorism without a face behind it is so empty Mr. Eideche, sure a bunch of building blowing up, power down, defenses down and grimm in the streets is frightening but if you wanted the people of Mantle to revolt you should have given them a cause to revolt for, you should have posted a manifesto with all your ramblings, maybe a few online videos of decapitations you know the stuff regular terrorists do."
"Well I'll keep that in mind for the future," Kalt said, "If you want I can wire you the money now," he looked back again towards Bonnie typing away at his computer.
"What is she doing?" Kalt asked him.
"Arranging your next terrorist attack," Vasily told him with a grin.
"What!" He said almost jumping out of his seat only for Vasily to pull the hammer back on the revolver to make a point.
"I'm afraid I need to keep the good General and his Huntsman busy tonight as I finish up my business here in Mantle, so Bonnie is arranging for you little teams and drones to strike again, it should be effective enough considering the city is already on edge and the grimm are flocking already, you should have kept your momentum when you had the chance."
"Vasily!" Kalt said, "if this is about leaving the country I can make arrangements," he explained to him, "no cost to you, I'll even kick in a bonus if you give me all the information you had on that android, I would have even paid top dollar for her alone."
"What do you possibly have that I can't take?" Vasily asked him, "I have access to your accounts, your contacts, your assets. Everything special about you Kalt is in that computer right there and as you can see Bonnie is making full use of everything you got."
He scowled at him, "You can't do this!"
"I am doing this," Vasily told him.
"Please don't do this!" Kalt begged, "This is all I have, the remnants of the White Fang are scattered, this is the best I can do."
"You think your politics can sway me?" Vasily laughed at him, "no I'm afraid it would only be a matter of time before Ironwood and his puppets caught you, you might have their investigation split into a dozen different directions but they'll eventually put the pieces together and you already know too much about me."
"I don't know anything dammit!" Kalt cried.
"You know of my work," Vasily said, "and you have the number to a few of my bank accounts, that's enough."
"I have ten million in cash hidden away," Kalt said, "I'll tell you wh-."
Crack!
The snub nose pistol fired and Kalt's head snapped back violently as the back of his head burst open and and painted the back of the couch with his brain matter. No aura, it was laughably pathetic how easy it was, just one simple shot to the head. He didn't worry about anyone reporting the gunshot, such disturbances were common in this neighborhood.
"Was that necessary?" Bonnie asked looking at the still corpse slumped on the far too old sofa.
Vasily shrugged, "no, but it's one less loose end," he said, "besides I hate begging and whimpering, he was certainly a lot braver talking to me on the phone."
He watched as the various collections of screens flashed displaying all shorts of information that was mostly beyond him. Encrypted messages and orders sent to numerous criminal organizations, arsonists, and hidden drones ready to spread unexplained anonymous destruction across the city. "Is it done?" Vasily asked him.
"Almost," Bonnie told him, "there's more here than I thought, he had all sorts of contingencies ready, railway bombings, cyber attacks he was ready to spend years orchestrating attacks from behind these screens."
"Use it all," Vasily instructed, "I don't want to take chances, empty Kalt's accounts to pay them all if you must."
"That shouldn't really be-," Bonnie said.
"Use it all!" Vasily told her, "You said it yourself, I'm the most wanted man in the country so I intend to keep the authorities properly distracted."
"That'll take a little more time," Bonnie told him.
"Take it," Vasily told her, "I'll be setting my stage."
Jaune didn't really know what he had expected, but it wasn't this.
He stared at the two metallic pods standing beside one another connected by a series of cable and connected to a series of electronic components beyond his understanding.
"This is how you gave your aura to Penny?" He asked him feeling hollow as he stared at the two pods feeling a pit forming in his stomach.
"It is," Pietro explained to him.
Jaune continued to stare at the machines and remembered the first time he had seen them deep beneath the bowls of Beacon.
"Is something wrong?" Pietro asked him as his mechanical chair walked in and around the room for him to inspect the machines.
"This is not the first time I've seen these pods," Jaune explained to him, "last time was during the Fall of Beacon, Pyrrha was in one."
Pietro raised his eyebrows at that, "I didn't know about that," he told Jaune seriously.
"I know," Jaune told him, "what happened back then wasn't on you, it's on Ozpin and Ironwood."
He continued to stare at the twin empty pods thinking about them.
"It's not too late to change your mind," Pietro told him somberly, "And I would not judge you if you did."
"Does it hurt?" Jaune asked him wondering just what he should expect from having his soul cut and ripped away from him. He remembered Pyrrha screaming in agony when she was in the pod having the Fall Maiden's aura funneled into her.
"Not physically," Pietro answered, "that is a difficult question to answer," he said as the table carried Penny's new body rolled in on motorized wheels, Penelope's body. Jaune still felt a little uneasy to think that this new Penny would be in the very same body that caused so much death and destruction.
"I'm not backing out," Jaune told him, deciding that if an aging scientist could handle whatever sort of pain this procedure inflicted he could too. "Will she wake up after this?" he asked, wanting to know the minute he could greet her once she had regained her senses.
"Yes, thought not immediately perhaps," Pietro explained to him, "I'm going to be keeping her in a form of rest mode at first, she'll be in a state of suspended consciousness for a while."
"She's not going to immediately wake up?" He asked him.
"I could have her wake up immediately," he explained, "but dying and subsequently being reborn, especially in a new body can be hard on the psyche, it'll be better if she has time to allow her to accumulate to her new brain and body, walk before you run as they say. From what I saw of Penelope's memory files it seems that assassin Vasily wasn't patient and she achieved consciousness the minute her aura had come online. One of her first memories is being ordered to kill a man."
A surge of disgust went through him thinking about what Vasily had done. He couldn't help but wonder if Penelope had become what she was due to the flaws Ironwood had left when she was built or if Vasily had corrupted her with his twisted work and mindset. Whatever the case he took comfort knowing that Pietro had looked over the body and had given it the consideration that only a father and a scientist of his caliber could.
"You looked through her memories?" Jaune asked him.
"A few of them," Pietro asked her, "I shifted through some of the more prevalent files she kept and it seems that was one of them, I was hoping I might find some useful information to help bring that criminal to justice."
"Did you?" Jaune asked finding pleasure in the idea of Penelope being a proverbial rope that hung Vasily.
"I found some information on the places they were hiding and I know now that there is a woman named Bonnie aiding Vasily in the more technical aspects of his work, I had wondered how such an assassin had procured so many custom built drones and now I know that his accomplice has been behind the scenes helping him."
The first pod opened with a hiss of hydraulics and the mechanical table lifted the restored mechanical body off its surface with mechanical arms and deposited her into the pod where she rested still and lifeless as a statue before the door to the pod closed again sealing her inside.
"Are you ready?" Pietro asked him with a somber look.
"Is there such a thing as being ready for something like this?" Jaune asked him, feeling his legs heavy as lead as he looked at the second pod.
"No, you can never really be truly ready for something like this, only as ready as possible," Pietro said.
"Then I think I'm about as ready as I can be," Jaune told him, "If I wait more to think hard about it I'm pretty sure I'll be less read than I am right now."
Pietro nodded, "I understand," he told him, "If it's any comfort it's easier the second time you do this."
Jaune raised an eyebrow at him, "that's not really much comfort," he told him frankly.
Pietro released a mournful sigh, "Sorry, I thought a joke might cut the tension."
Jaune wanted to ask him in what possible way that was funny but further talk was only going to delay that for them.
"Let's just do this," Jaune said with more resolve and confidence that he really felt.
"Alright," Pietro said to him, tapping some controls on the arm of his chair. The machine hummed as it opened for him and Jaune released a breath he held trying to steel himself. "For Penny," he said to himself but the way Pietro looked at him afterwards he knew he had said it aloud.
He took several steps forward, each step was at least easier than the last. He stepped inside and laid back against the cushioned back. With a mechanical whir the pod door slowly close and sealed shut.
Pietro gave him a look through the plexiglass window. "Are you ready?" His voice came in muffled despite the pod being sealed.
Jaune just nodded in response.
The pod began to hum with energy as it activated. His aura began to glow white with energy as it felt like it was being assaulted. His vision blurred as his own aura glowed brightly enveloping him. Everything turned out of focus and he closed his eyes as pain enveloped his world.
He felt like he was on fire from the inside, like his heart was suddenly transformed into red hot steel and was pumping molten iron through his veins. He could hardly think as agony seemed to consume him, he felt like he was being torn asunder and the pieces violently smashed together only for the process to repeat again and again and every time he felt like a piece of him was missing.
The agonizing sensations continued on for what seemed to be an eternity condensed into a mere few seconds. Slowly the pain faded away and he found his faculties returning. He opened his eyes to find the pod door open and Pietro staring at him offering a hand.
Jaune took it and pulled himself out taking several deep breaths, "I thought you said it wouldn't hurt," Jaune said to him.
"I said not physically," Pietro answered him with a somber smile, "I just ripped apart a piece of your soul, you felt a pain that was beyond the mere physical."
"Did it work?" Jaune asked him.
"I did," Pietro said, indicating the other pod.
Penny remained inside glowing white from Jaune's aura, he watched as it shimmered around her intermixing light shades of green with it.
"Your aura has taken root, her brain is going online and starting to generate into its own form. She is currently in a state of semi consciousness processing her new body and the memories she has. I'll wake her in few hours when she's ready," he explained to her.
"Good," Jaune nodded.
Pietro smiled at him, "I cannot tell you how much this means to me," he said.
"Think nothing of it," Jaune said scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.
"It isn't nothing," Pietro told him, "sit down I'll take a look at you."
He led Jaune into a chair and checked his pupils, he was panting from the exertion and found that a sheen of sweat was covering his brow.
"You know when I first did this I fainted," Pietro explained, "then I spent a whole day before I was completely recovered," he told him, "my first week with Penny I talked to her on a computer before bringing her fully online."
"Really?" Jaune asked him, "you spent that long after that just talking to her on a computer?"
"I had only uploaded basic data to her positronic brain," he explained, "a child has to undergo a process of discovery so I took that time to help acquaint herself with her own consciousness and slowly began introducing data to her, I was convinced that if she knew too much too soon it could be damaging."
Jaune waited as he checked his pulse putting a finger to his wrist and checking his aura levels. "You weren't kidding when you said you have aura to spare," Pietro told him, "you're currently at forty percent your usual levels and it seems you might still have twenty percent above the average, fascinating."
"How far was I above the average before?" Jaune asked him.
"You didn't know?" Pietro asked him, "You were at fifty percent the world average."
"So I'm not completely useless now," Jaune said with a sigh of relief, "at least I can still take more of a beating than the average person."
"Indeed, you should at least have no trouble continuing your career as a huntsman," he explained grinning, "just rest for now, in a few hours I'll wake Penny up and we can have a nice dinner, I can even pull out my photo albums and I'll see if I can embarrass her like a father should, it'll be like a normal night of her introducing me to her boyfriend."
Jaune smiled and nodded, "that sounds really nice," he agreed looking over to watch the swirling light of her white and green aura fade until she looked like a regular sleeping girl.
Pietro nodded, "how about I order a pizza?" he suggested his chair walking away and Jaune followed thinking he could eat and entire pizza himself.
"Order two," Jaune said, flashing him a grin, "I'm starving."
"Two it is," Pietro said.
Jaune stood and walked over to Penny's pod setting his hand on the cold metal surface looking at her resting form and wondering just what was going on in her mind. Was she wondering what had happened after that round burst through her chest, about what happened to him? He could hardly wait for her to wake up, to show that he was safe and that the danger had passed.
His pocket vibrated interrupting his thoughts, he sighed and reached for his scroll. His friends hadn't tried calling him for some time and now that Penny was on track to waking up.
He opened the call and found a chilling set of icy blue eyes looking at him. "Hello Mr. Arc," Vasily greeted him from the screen, "I think it's time we settled this once and for all."
I hope everyone enjoyed this week's chapter. As usual please review and leave me with your thoughts and opinions. I was looking forward to showing Vasily's employer, to pull back the curtain and show that there really was never much of anything there in the first place. As usual I would like to thank MidKnightMoonglow99, Firefly25, MajorBrony95, and DrknssRules1 for all the help they have given me in this story and the next.