Chapter 55

Beta: ShadowMeister234

Yang didn't want to claim victory before the fight was even finished, but it was hard not to when the fight was so one-sided. Sun and fake Blake weren't bad by any means, but Pyrrha was making them look like amateurs. She weaved in and out of their attacks like she memorized them days ago and took advantage of even the slightest gap in their defenses. Pyrrha could have handled this fight all on her own, but having Yang by her side only made the beatdown all the more severe.

Sun crumpled under Yang's fists. His back was against the wall and his staff was hardly blocking anything since he had to keep a death grip on it else risk having it ripped away by Pyrrha's semblance. Without access to any of his more acrobatic moves, Sun's performance was pitiful. If Yang was to guess, his aura was probably a few strikes away from dropping into the red.

The impostor was doing even worse. She still hadn't learned to properly use Blake's weapon, and even the impossible way she moved her body was no match for Pyrrha's raw skill. Hits were scored and instead of the impostor losing aura, she lost parts of herself as the sap that made up her body splattered onto the hallway floor.

It should have been all the proof Sun needed to realize the Blake they were fighting wasn't real, but he was so far gone that even shoving his face into the foul-smelling sap didn't convince him. All he knew was his girlfriend was being hurt and he was failing to help her.

In a desperate move, Sun let go of his staff and grabbed onto Yang by wrapping his arms around her waist. Yang was only stunned for a moment then delivered a few brutal punches to Sun's unprotected head, but that didn't stop him from lifting her off her feet and rushing the both of them into Pyrrha. Pyrrha saw them coming and dodged out of the way with ease, but it did force her to break off her engagement with Blake.

Sun only stopped his charge when he pinned Yang against the other wall. Yang continued to rain down blows on the poor monkey faunus, but he refused to let go. "Blake, get out of here! Look for help. I'll hold them off."

It would have been a valiant and romantic gesture if Sun wasn't trying to sacrifice himself to save a monster. Sun went down for good, blood dripping from his scalp. He wasn't dead, but Sun was stubborn to the core forcing Yang to deliver quite a vicious beating to get him to stop moving.

In a moment of seemingly genuine humanity, the imposter gasped and quickly knelt by Sun's side cradling his head in her lap. "How could you," she growled. "All Sun wanted to do was help. He didn't deserve this."

Pyrrha whimpered, the champion fighter weak to such displays, but Yang wasn't about to let herself get guilt-tripped by the creature that took her partner's face. "Don't act like we're at fault. You're the one that got Sun involved in the first place, and he's only doing it because he thinks you're Blake. Unless you told him that your boss murdered the real Blake, that is?" The impostor hissed although it didn't originate from her mouth. Yang didn't pick up on that detail. She just took the noise as confirmation. "That's what I thought. You're just using him you monster."

Pyrrha realized what Yang had not and readied her weapon as the fake Blake grew larger. "You want to call me a monster. Fine, I'll show you a monster." Blake continued to grow, her skin stretching and tearing until it morphed into purple sap. Her face and back boiled and hissed until nothing that resembled Blake Belladonna remained. In her place was a purple slime as tall as the hallway and almost as wide. It didn't have eyes but Blake and Yang could tell it was looking down on them.

Then it surged forward rolling over Sun like a blanket and spitting him out the other end unharmed. The same could not be said for Yang and Pyrrha. Shotgun blasts and spear thrusts passed harmlessly into the slime's body. Moments later they were engulfed by the creature.

It was like being trapped in mud. They could move around, but it wasn't easy. They tried desperately to surface for air, but the slime created currents within its body to prevent that. The girls were trapped and quickly running out of oxygen.

The slime didn't have a mouth but as Yang and Pyrrha struggled they heard a voice talking to them. "It didn't have to be this way. We all could have been friends if only you could have accepted me for what I am. Just because I wasn't born with a body doesn't mean I don't deserve one. Perhaps when you die, you'll finally understand."

Yang was so tired of this thing's excuses. The problem had never been the lack of humanity. It had always been that it took her partner's entire life without any remorse. That it seemed incapable of understanding that pissed Yang off, and when Yang got angry flames were soon to follow.

Her hair burned brightly and the sap around her started to boil. The slime made a sound that might have been pain, but it wasn't going to release them so easily. "I hope you have a better plan than that?" the slime taunted. Yang didn't. Having her hair burst into flames hadn't even been a plan in the first place. It was just a reaction to her emotional state, but fate was on their side. The sap Yang was unintentionally boiling turned into steam and that steam traveled up towards the ceiling, directly into a smoke detector.

The fire alarm blared and the overhead sprinklers were unleashed. Water poured down on the slime and it hissed like it was being bathed in acid. It rushed to the other end of the hall where the sprinklers weren't on, but in the process left Yang and Pyrrha behind seemingly not able to move at the speed it wanted to with them still inside it.

The girls gasped for air after being released and clumsily worked their way back up to their feet, but despite their weakened position, the slime didn't dare approach them. It just sat at the other end of the hallway, safe from the water, presumably staring at them.

"So, water is its weakness?" Yang questioned.

Pyrrha looked at the water pooling at her feet and noticed it was tinted slightly purple. "I think the water is diluting it. It probably can't control itself if it absorbs too much water."

"That's good I guess, but I'm guessing you didn't happen to bring a bucket with you."

"I didn't, but I have a better idea although I don't think Headmistress Goodwitch will be happy." Pyrrha seemed genuinely distraught about that but still pushed her semblance forward.

The ceiling above the slime cracked and crumbled as a metal water pipe was pulled down. Gallons of water poured from the broken pipe onto the slime and it started rapidly losing mass as the sap that made up its body was swept away.

There was no escape. It was trapped between a torrent waterfall and a flooded hallway. It seemed like this was the end for it, but in a last-ditch effort to survive it condensed itself back into the form of Blake Belladonna. It wasn't the perfect replica it had been before. This Blake was frail and less defined than before. It looked like it could barely stand, but at least in this form, it wasn't being washed away. "Alright, I give up. You win."

Yang didn't trust it for a second, but Pyrrha, the bleeding heart that she was, lowered her weapon. Before they could even argue about what to do, a gunshot rang out and the impostor's head exploded into a spray of sap. The body slumped over and melted into the same sap before being washed away completely.

Yang looked towards the perpetrator who after completing the deed dropped his gun-chucks. Sun's eyes were rimmed red with tears as he clenched his fists into the soggy carpet. "It really wasn't her. Blake has been dead all this time. How could I be so stupid?"

Pyrrha knelt down to comfort the devastated faunus and Yang would have done the same if she didn't lose her balance when the entire school shook. The rumbling only lasted a few seconds, but it was intense. The already damaged hallway suffered many new cracks and missing chunks.

"What was that?" Pyrrha asked.

"Nothing good," Yang responded.

This was not the fight Jaune had been expecting. For all his grandiose talk, it turned out that Sulfur Insure was a complete coward. The man wouldn't come anywhere close to Jaune, and every time he tried to close the distance Sulfur would run off. It wouldn't have been so bad except all of Jaune's ranged options relied on magic. Magic that Sulfur could easily negate with his staff.

If the context wasn't so dire it would've been interesting to see what actually counted as magic to the silver eyes. For instance, when Sulfur had first opened his staff to destroy Jaune's light spear it had also destroyed most of the tattoos on his arm. Only two had survived since they had been on the underside of his arm and thus out of the staff's sight. Jaune made sure to continue to keep those lines hidden while wondering if the others would recharge like normal or if they were gone forever. Etches fared a lot better. They had to be near completion before Sulfur's staff would recognize them as magic and Jaune could hide behind any of the many pillars to draw them, but Sulfur could just target the etch's effect instead so the workaround wasn't actually that helpful. With magic looking less and less viable Jaune's only choice was to fight Sulfur the regular way.

Despite all the training with Emerald, Jaune still felt the least confident in his swordplay. Sure, he wasn't an amateur anymore, but taking down a Beacon student with just his sword and none of his magic was going to be a tough task especially when his opponent refused to actually engage in a melee fight.

Jaune charged forward figuring that even if Sulfur ran away if Jaune just kept pressing forward he'd run him down eventually. Sulfur did indeed start running away, but once he noticed Jaune wasn't stopping, he did something he had yet to do for the entire fight. He reached for his guns at his waist. Specifically, he grabbed a revolver that was so old and rusted that common sense would say that it couldn't even fire, but this was a fight where common sense didn't apply. If Sulfur was using something so unusual, then there was definitely a reason for it. After all, Jaune's magic was locked down, but Sulfur was under no such restrictions.

Sulfur pointed the revolver in Jaune's direction and quickly pulled the trigger. As expected, the revolver fired just fine. Jaune didn't even consider trying to block with his shield or aura. He dove to the side and let the projectile sail far past him on his right. He wasn't going to risk being hit with any surprises.

Strangely, instead of taking another shot, Sulfur lowered his gun and fled. Jaune gave chase and was finally closing the distance between them when something struck him in the back. He hadn't been expecting it so his aura hadn't protected him nearly as well as it should. He was nearly knocked over from the impact.

Sulfur laughed at Jaune's expense and stopped to fire a second round. Just like the last time, Jaune dodged to the side but this time he kept his eyes on the projectile. The bullet impacted the floor behind him, but instead of staying lodged there like any normal bullet it bounced off the floor and headed right back towards Jaune without any decrease in speed. He blocked with his shield but the bullet ricocheted off it too, hit a pillar, ricocheted off that and came right back.

Jaune hissed as he blocked with his shield again, but this time when the bullet hit, he swung his shield sending the bullet far to the other end of the room. It didn't stop it though. It bounced around erratically before seeming to make up its mind and flew to its target. Unfortunately, that target wasn't Jaune. "Ruby, watch out!"

Ruby had already realized, but even with her aura ready she yelped when the bullet struck her shoulder. Jaune desperately wanted to go over and make sure she was okay, but there was no time as Sulfur pulled the trigger again.

Jaune ducked to the side a third time and ran behind a pillar hoping that the bullet would stop if he broke line of sight with it. That was not the case and the bullet followed an impossibly curved path around the pillar to hit him in the cheek.

Sulfur took the opportunity to mock him. "Man, here I am being nice by not using Ruby as a hostage and forcing you to protect her, yet you go and send an attack right her way. In case you're confused, the gun I'm using is cursed. When it shoots it has to hit someone, no exception. It's what my dad used to kill my mom before blowing his own brains out. I wonder if that's what caused it to be cursed or if it had been cursed before then? It's miraculous what kind of magical items you can find if you just look hard enough." He fired the revolver again.

Jaune was ready this time. He quickly broke from the pillar and smacked the bullet back with his sword. Sulfur hissed as his own attack came back at him, but a quick use of his staff dropped the bullet in its tracks. Jaune wasn't done though. He continued charging Sulfur even after he fired another round and fled again.

The chase continued from there for a while after. They must have been running around for at least twenty minutes. It was in these moments that Jaune really wished he had a gun of his own. It was practically scripted at this point with Sulfur running then shooting a bullet when Jaune got too close which forced Jaune to slow down in order to send it back only for Sulfur to use his staff to rob the bullet of its power. Rinse and repeat.

There didn't seem to be any hope of Sulfur running out of ammo either. The revolver had already fired many more bullets than it should have been capable of without reloading. It was probably best to assume his ammo was infinite even if it seemed he could only shoot one at a time.

Sulfur could keep this chase going on forever at this rate, but what was he hoping to accomplish with this never-ending game of tag? He was stalling. That was really the only explanation, but for what? Jaune knew that in the long-term time wasn't on their side for this invasion, but in the short-term, an ally from either side could come down that elevator and turn the tide. Was Sulfur that confident his side would emerge victorious in any skirmishes? Jaune didn't think Sulfur would place his bets on such a huge risk like that. Sulfur had to be waiting for something more specific. Something that he was confident would happen given just a bit more time. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good for Jaune. He needed a way to break this stalemate.

Suddenly, Jaune stopped the chase and hid behind a pillar. Sulfur stopped as well to ready himself for whatever etch Jaune might be drawing, but Jaune didn't emerge and no magic was launched. Sulfur must have gotten tired of waiting because he fired his revolver to flush Jaune out.

The bullet curved around the pillar like a guided missile to hit Jaune, but before the bullet completed its journey, Jaune popped out from behind the pillar with his shield raised. Like so many times before Jaune used that shield to smack the bullet back where it came from, and like so many times before Sulfur used his staff to render it null, but just as Sulfur used his staff to neutralize the bullet, a fireball materialized behind him.

Jaune had indeed been drawing an etch behind the pillar but he hadn't completed it until Sulfur shot. That way he could use the return bullet as a distraction. His staff might have been able to destroy any magic, but it could only do so in one direction at a time. Even if Sulfur had noticed both attacks, it wasn't likely he could get them both in the staff's line of sight that quickly.

It really looked like the fireball would hit Sulfur and finally do some damage, but Sulfur was a quick thinker and was able to adjust his grip to spin the staff around in his palm so it was facing the other way. If he had tried to spin his whole body around, like most people would have done, he wouldn't have made it, but with the time he saved, Sulfur was able to activate his staff again just in time to wipe the fireball out of existence.

Ruby whimpered from her spectator seat obviously having wished Jaune's plan had worked, but Jaune wasn't nearly as deterred. He had been prepared for Sulfur to block both attacks which is why he had launched a third: himself.

When Jaune had smacked the bullet back, he had never stopped following behind it. He had continued to run towards Sulfur even at the risk of being hit by his own fireball. The gambit had paid off, and for the first time in the entire fight, Jaune had closed the distance between them.

Sulfur's eyes widened on realizing this and he quickly tried to back away, but without his head start he couldn't get out of Jaune's sword range. He could have blocked with his staff, but Sulfur must have thought it was too valuable to risk even being slightly damaged. Sulfur took Jaune's sword to the side of his ribs. Aura protected him from any real damage, but judging from the grunt Sulfur let out, the blow was still painful.

Jaune didn't do all this work for one attack though. He had a bigger prize in mind. He let go of his shield, letting it disappear into the Apeiron, and used his now free hand to grab at the staff. Jaune was taller and bigger than Sulfur, so if he could force a grappling match, he was likely to come out on top, and without his staff Sulfur would lose his greatest advantage.

"No, you don't!" Sulfur dropped his revolver and pressed his free palm into Jaune's chest where Jaune then felt several sharp points start to pierce his aura. The force was enough to fling him back and reestablish the distance between him and Sulfur.

"I had really hoped to avoid using these," Sulfur moaned. Something slithered underneath his jacket sleeve and from the cuff emerged several tendrils. They wiggled up towards Sulfur's face like they meant to caress him until he pulled a blood bag from the inside of his jacket. Immediately the tendrils changed course and pierced the blood bag like angry snakes. Within seconds the blood was drained and the tendrils retreated back under his sleeve, but before they did, Jaune realized what they reminded him of. They looked a lot like the roots of a plant.

Sulfur confirmed the observation correct a moment later. "I have to say, I much prefer the sap of the Lover's Tree. Its roots are far too greedy. You wouldn't believe how much blood it needs to do just about anything. It's only because I have such a considerate donor that I haven't been drained myself."

Jaune hissed as he looked back to the IV embedded in Ruby's arm. "Is there anything you won't do?"

Sulfur completely ignored Jaune to pull two objects from his pocket. Jaune recognized them immediately. They were two dice, one black and one gold just like the ones Jaune had found in Sulfur's room. The major difference was the ones he found were six-sided; the one's Sulfur held were twenty-sided. "I think our back-and-forth has been going on long enough, and with that last attack of yours, I'm sure I've built up enough karma to use these." Sulfur tossed the dice. "The nature of the world is to equal out. Just as one minus one is equal to zero, a calamity paired with a miracle will lead to nothing in the end. The only thing left to chance is the deviation."

When the dice hit the floor, they didn't so much as roll but seemed to fight each other for dominance. They bumped and clashed, but eventually, they settled down and came to a rest. Jaune shouldn't have been able to see which side landed faceup from his position, but somehow, he knew exactly what number had been chosen. The dice both displayed sixteen.

A few moments passed with nothing happening. It went on long enough that Jaune was beginning to wonder if this was all a bluff. Then the entire basement shook which was very concerning considering how deep underground they were.

"What did you do?" Jaune demanded.

Sulfur shrugged. "Who knows? Whatever happens now is up to the dice."

The battle between the Schnee siblings was not going nearly as well as Whitley had hoped. Just his luck that the one thing Weiss hadn't taken for granted were her huntress lessons. Even if Father had never approved of Weiss' desire to follow in Winter's footsteps, he would never let a child of his be subpar at anything. So of course the best tutors Atlas had to offer had been brought in to teach her and it showed.

Even three-on-one with the Malachite twins backing him up, Weiss was pushing them back. If they weren't careful, they would be knocked right off Beacon's cliff and into the forest below. Whitley aimed his shotgun at Weiss and pulled the trigger, but he missed by a mile. Those glyphs she skipped around on just made her way too fast.

She was already inside his guard. He made a poor attempt at blocking her rapier thrusts, but the only reason Weiss didn't get to run him through was because Melanie intervened. The white twin wasn't a real match for Weiss, but she was enough to get her to back off a bit. Miltia came in to assist, but even their all wasn't enough. Weiss batted them away within seconds.

Whitley gulped as Weiss aimed her murderous attention back at him. In a panic, he grabbed the marble in his pocket and threw it at her. She used her sword to knock it away with ease, but when she did, she grunted and covered her eyes like she had been hit with a flashbang. Technically she had. Whitley may not have been in the field enough to collect as many magical items as Jaune, but he had been able to track down and purchase a few. That marble was one of them. Moving it too abruptly caused it to unleash a blinding light but only to the person touching it, even if they were only touching it with the tip of their sword.

Weiss had been completely unprepared and was finally sitting still enough that Whitley could shoot her, which he did. He wasn't close enough for his shotgun blast to hit her with its full power but Weiss was still sent flying. She gripped her stomach in pain, but her aura held and her eyes had recovered enough to dodge the second round of scattershot he sent her way.

Whitley bit his bottom lip. He knew Weiss' aura wasn't the strongest and she was using a lot of it to constantly maintain her glyphs, so he had been hoping one solid hit from his shotgun would be enough to break it. Sadly, it looked like it was going to take more than that. In the meantime, he had only made her angrier.

Weiss' eyes were wide as she lifted her weapon and produced her biggest glyph yet, and from that glyph came a swarm of white nevermores. Just when had she learned to summon? The nevermore flock descended upon them. They were too small, too fast, and too many for any of them to effectively fight off. It was little surprise that Whitley's aura broke first. The twins tried to help but a wall of ice blocked their path.

Weiss appeared in front of him, knocked his weapon out of his hands, then summoned a glyph under his feet that pulled him down until he was on his stomach. The tip of her rapier tapped against his cheek. "It's over dear brother. Call off your attack?"

Whitley groaned in pain. "No can do. This is a quest to save the world."

"Would you quit it with your delusion." Weiss raised her leg like she was going to kick him but then thought better of it. She probably thought it was too unbecoming of her to kick an opponent while they were down. "When will you understand that you're not the hero?"

"I could say the same thing to you, sister."

An ugly snarl graced Weiss' features and the rapier dug into Whitley's cheek coming dangerously close to drawing blood. "Is this all because of me? Did you do all this just because you couldn't stand the thought of me having anything? Are you that obsessed with humiliating me?"

Whitley grew angry. "Are you seriously accusing me of launching a full-scale invasion on Beacon just because of a grudge against you? You're not the center of the world Weiss. There's more going on here than you know, or maybe you just refuse to see it."

Weiss used her glyphs to force Whitley back to his feet then grabbed his collar to shout something in his face, but whatever it was never got said because at that moment, far below their location, two dice had just landed on the number sixteen.

What followed were a series of extraordinary events. The glass knife that Whitley had strapped to his side flew loose despite it being tightly secured. It then hit the ground at the perfect angle to bounce back into the air where an unexplainable strong gust of wind carried it past the cliff's edge and over the Emerald Forest. The knife spun in the air as it flew, but at one point the blade "caught" on something. It shouldn't have been possible for the knife to create a tear without its wielder's intention, but in this one-in-a-million chance, the knife did it on its own.

The knife continued its descent cutting a massive wound in reality as it went. Eventually, reality shook the knife loose and it harmlessly fell the rest of the way never to be seen again. The tear was still there though, and from it emerged a hand then another until an entire person pulled herself through.

She was much bigger than a normal human and wore a white cloth draped around her, but her most notable feature were the two wings that sprouted from her back. The wings weren't formed from feathers but from diamond-shaped plates.

There was a momentary stop in the fighting as all students took a second to admire the angelic newcomer. Weiss was not so nearly enamored. "Whitley, what did you do now!" Whitley didn't respond. He was staring wide-eyed at the newly emerged creature because he recognized it. Not from personal experience, but from Jaune's description which had painted a horrifying picture.

The Cryphilictal angel heeded none of this as she stretched her black wings. "Oh my, how long has it been since I've felt real sunlight?" She never thought she'd see the outside world again, but it would seem her bond with Cryphilictal had been overwritten. So, what was she contracted to do now? Her eyes landed on the floating fortress known as Amity Colosseum. "Perhaps I shall start by getting rid of that eyesore."

The angel raised her wings and just like that Amity Colosseum was sliced in half. The remains crashed into the Emerald Forest sending shockwaves all throughout Beacon. With the colosseum taken care of, the angel turned her attention to the only other nearby point of interest: Beacon Academy.

Arthur Watts was breathing heavily as the fight against Klein continued to drag on although calling it a fight was being rather generous. Roman was still standing if only barely while his devil had already fallen into unconsciousness. Watts wasn't as injured, but that came at the cost of all his drones which now scattered the ground in multiple pieces.

Klein, while not unscathed, wasn't much worse for wear. It felt like he was treating this encounter as less of a fight and more of a way to see how deep the bag of tricks went for his adversaries. Sadly, that bag had just run empty.

At least they had a brief respite since Klein's attention was being taken up by the winged women who had just destroyed Amity. Of course, it was very concerning that the nightmare of Cryphilictal had escaped her confinement, but Arthur would have welcomed the end of the world if it gave him a slight break from Klein's onslaught.

"Oh dear, I do believe that might be too much for Master Whitley to handle." Klein's eyes moved over to Watts who stiffened in fear. "Well, Dr. Watts I do believe this is the time to reveal your ace. Is this not the kind of situation it was meant for?"

Arthur didn't bother asking how Klein knew about his secret weapon. He had never expected to keep it a secret from him anyway. "While I would agree with you, my super weapon is currently halfway around the globe in Atlas."

Klein rolled his eyes then pressed the palms of his hands together. Space around them warped as three dimensions were crushed into two. Watts hated this sensation. It always made him want to vomit. Roman already had.

Thankfully, the torture was short-lived as space expanded back into its proper shape. Everything was the same except now there was a curly red-haired girl standing next to him, or at least that's what her appearance suggested.

"Salutations, Uncle Watts." Penny didn't seem at all concerned that she had just been warped through space-time. "It's a pleasure to see you again after 2 years 5 months 13 days 17 hours 2 minutes and 36 seconds. There is much to inform you about."

Watts sighed, still not comfortable with this manufactured personality. "My apologies Penny, but there isn't really time for that. I have a mission for you. Do you see that?"

Penny's eyes focused on the winged humanoid that was heading towards Beacon. "Accessing archive. Match found. A guardian of Cryphilictal encounter by the Schnee sect during Cryphilictal expedition." Penny turned to Watts. "With my current settings, it will be impossible for me to destroy such a creature."

"I know. That's why I'm letting you use everything you have. Initiate limiter removal. Code phrase: deus ex machina." Penny's eyes lit up twice in quick succession, but nothing else about her seemed to change. Watts knew that wasn't the case though. "Penny, your mission is to destroy the creature attacking Beacon."

"Understood, I am combat ready." Penny gave a quick salute then used the boosters on her feet to fly towards her objective.

Roman hobbled up to him. "Is your toy really capable of beating that thing?"

Watts scoffed. "I have no doubt. Penny shares the same base as that creature after all. This fight was practically what she was made for."

Memories of the past

Penny's creation caused a great disagreement between Dr. Watts and Dr. Polendina. In the beginning, the objective was simple. They were being paid by Atlas to create an artificial human capable of using aura. The thought was that if this project was successful then Atlas could use machines instead of actual huntsmen for the most dangerous missions. On the side, Dr. Watts was hoping to use this project to further some of his more personal goals regarding the unknown world, but that wasn't what caused the dispute.

At the start, when everything was just drawings on a board and lines of code in a computer, things were fine, but as the project progressed and Penny gained more of a "personality" objectives began to diverge.

Dr. Watts wanted a weapon. Dr. Polendina wanted a daughter. It was an issue to which there could be no reconciliation, so the two scientists devoted themselves to different parts of Penny. Dr. Watts created the mind while Dr. Polendina created the heart.

In the end, Dr. Polendina won out and Penny was treated more like a human and less like a weapon, but no matter how much Dr. Polendina believed it, Penny was no human. She was an object to be used by Atlas for whatever purpose they deemed fit.

The only way this could be changed is if she were to fall into someone else's custody.