This is an oldie. My first Writer Games fill, written exactly one year ago, on November 17, 2016. Ironically, I found it an example of a too-specific prompt. Of course, even then, the prompt itself just inspired to write my first ever fill, so I guess it wasn't too bad.

Fill: Penny Utilitarian Superhero (PUSH)

Prompt: Ruby and Penny are superheroes with conflicting opinions on justice. One of them finds out the other's true identity.

Penny Polendina was, on the surface, an ordinary, if not odd, girl. After her father died, she moved to Vale and attended Beacon Academy. She was interested in many things, from engineering to macroeconomics, and was a straight A student. She was top of the class, a distinction she held with Ruby Rose, who was also two years younger.

This naturally led to the two becoming friends, as well as shared accidental hostility with Weiss Schnee (bumping into her was apparently a common thing), they hung out, went to the movies, played whatever sports that didn't require physical contact, and tried to one-up each other in academics. Their quirky personalities and shared interests in engineering were also of note.

Penny Polendina was definitely a normal girl, after all, she had a best friend, went to school, and occasionally saved the world from time to time. Oh right, forgot about that. Penny Polendina was created by her late father to be the hero that Remnant needed, At-Lass, an android that shot lasers, had swords, fly, among other myriad abilities. She is also an android, a machine created with a specific set of parameters and abilities.

By day, she's a normal student, by night she goes out to fight crime, defeat monsters, and save lives. She's defeated countless villains, from the mad scientist Doctor Watts to the master thief Roman Torchwick, ending with them incarcerated or dead. The lives she saved were numerous, her projections putting it in the hundreds of thousands.

Life was good.

Except for that other superheroine in town, The Grimm Reaper. Well that's what she calls herself, the media was still trying to come up with a good alias for her. Frankly, Penny thought it was too scary, maybe marketable to a certain demographic. Not like At-Lass, which catered to all ages, and allowed Penny to profit off of her own superhero status, allowing her to develop better weapons, better robotics, and donate to multiple charities as a bonus.

Grimm Reaper was an oddity. Whenever a criminal threatened civilians, she would always save them, allowing the perpetrator to get away. It didn't make sense to Penny, what was the point of saving the civilians if the criminals were allowed to threaten more people as a result of their freedom? Her father would have called that sentimentalism, or maybe terrible forward planning.

The one time the two ended up working together was after a madman blew up a bank and running away with millions of Lien. Grimm Reaper immediately went in to save civilians while At-Lass had to come in and capture the bad guy before he could get away. That was a terrible mistake in Penny's eyes. Twenty people were killed in that blast, and at most fifty others were in direct harm or in need of medical attention. But that monster would assuredly kill again, blowing up other inhabited buildings before finally being stopped. That was just the math. Sacrifice the few to save the many.

That was two weeks ago, and Penny hadn't let the foolishness of her fellow superhero get in the way of a normal life. The following day, Ruby had a broken wrist, and she claimed it was because of a bad fall. It could have been a coincidence, if it weren't for the emerging pattern. The day after Grimm Reaper fought against that giant bird monster, Ruby had a twisted ankle, and the time Reaper teamed up with Fireball to defeat a giant robot in Patch, Ruby was out of town, visiting her hometown… of Patch. It was a string of coincidences that was too long to ignore.

That was the mindset Penny was in when she encountered The Grimm Reaper outside of any normal emergency. Penny had decided to go on patrol after Ruby told her she was busy for the rest of the evening, so Penny had little to do other than listen to police scanners. Unfortunately for her, it was an unusually quiet night.

That was when she noticed a red hooded individual wielding an enormous scythe, just sitting there on a rooftop. Penny immediately recognized The Grimm Reaper's signature style, which probably would end up selling decent amounts of action figures, if only she would merchandize her likeness. The estimated profits would, considering current market trends and fads among her demographic, estimate around 2 million Lien this coming holiday season. That was 260,000 meals for the homeless or 10 million doses of vaccines.

Pushing all that aside, Penny stealthily approached The Grimm Reaper. She had also noted that both Ruby and Reaper having some form of headphones, playing music. If she was lucky, she could catch Ruby unawares. She had to be careful, Reaper had that enormous scythe (it had to be at least 90 kilograms, indicating that Reaper was stronger than she looked), along with super speed and reflexes, so if she was startled, Penny was likely to lose an arm.

Eh, she could always get a new one. Penny tiptoed in front of Reaper, noting the exact length of her arms and scythe and standing an inch farther. Just in case. As At-Lass entered her line of sight, Reaper took off her headphones and looked straight at her.

"Hello At-Lass. Is there anything you need?"

Penny decided to smile. Of course Ruby wouldn't recognize her, At-Lass used an entirely different prosthetic face than "Penny" did. Penny continued smiling before speaking up, "Salutations, Ruby!"

If she was Ruby, then she would catch her. If not, she can totally play it off as a quirk. Assuming her hiccups-when-lying thing doesn't start up again.

"Uhh..." was all Reaper said.

Penny's smile became warmer, as well as switching to her normal voice, "I know it's you, Ruby. I'd know my best friend anywhere!"

Ruby looked at her dumbfounded, "Penny?!"

"Yep! In the flesh, or in this case," Penny pulls off an arm, "In the metal. I'm a synthetic being."

"What."

"So… wanna go to the arcade? I can keep an eye on the police scanners with my built in transceiver."

"Okay. Bet I can beat you at Dance Dance Faunus Rights Revolution!" Ruby jumped up to hug Penny.

"Haha, not this time! I've been practicing!" Penny began floating in the air, "Want to race there first?"

"You're on!"

Penny smiled as she got into position, facing the arcade as Ruby counted down from five. She didn't agree with her friend's way of superheroing, but that doesn't mean she isn't a good person.

"Two. One. Go!" The two superheroines dashed off across the rooftops.

Besides, Penny thought, it's going to be fun convincing Ruby to her way of way of thinking.

When writing this, I came up with a bunch of worldbuilding for the AU this fic would take place in. It is a world of superheroes, where Grimm still exist, but the kingdoms are well adept at fighting them. Internal threats, supervillains, extradimensional monsters, etc. were a greater threat. If I ever did write a series based on this, there'd be a bunch of cool characters I could've writted:

At-Lass, aka Penny, used to be the sidekick to Snow Queen, (Winter Schnee) before striking it out on her own after her father died to Doctor Watts. His final words were "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." As he sacrificed himself to save a bus full of people. Needless to say, Penny took her father's last words to heart. She's Lex Luthor meets Brainiac, but a good guy.

The Grimm Reaper, aka Ruby Rose, who had enhanced strength, healing, super speed. She also has Cerberus, the giant cuddly three headed dog! It's Zwei with the ability to change sizes and grow heads.

Fireball, aka Yang Xiao Long, is a half-human, half alien (on her mom's side) with super strength, fire powers (fire punch!) and invulnerability. Her alien half hails from a distant moon. She is the protector of the Island of Patch.

There would be Weiss Schnee, who is next in line in her family to become the Arc-Sorceress, protector of Remnant from monsters residing in alternate dimensions, learning the powers of magic through her glyphs. She is taught by Professor Goodwitch, and despite attending the same school as Penny and Ruby, their adventures generally stay separate. Yes, she is a Doctor Strange ripoff.

There was Nora, goddess of Thunder who comes from another plane of reality, best buddies with Ren, who is basically Batman trying to be Jimmy Olsen to Nora's Superman. He's super competent while Nora blows stuff up and destroys things too easily. There's Jaune, who is basically Jimmy Olsen trying to be Batman. He's friends with Pyrrha, who is a supersoldier called Captain Mistral. Super strength, invulnerability, magnet powers, an indestructible shield.

So yeah, it was an idea. A brief idea with no plot nor enough momentum behind it to go anywhere, but it was fun to brainstorm nonetheless. As for the fill itself, I see some issues with it. The ending part with Ruby finding out Penny's identity should have been a bit longer, since Ruby realizing her best friend was both an android and a superhero would have been difficult to swallow. Other than that, it was definitely fun to write and think about it even now.