Time off (no fic updates) confirmed as going off Thurs 22nd and coming back Jan 4th. Fics will resume after that as normal.


Cover Art: Mysterywhiteflame

Chapter 10


Winter Schnee hadn't been surprised when they returned from their mountain retreat and accepted sponsorship into the specialist programme; she acted like she'd known they would come around eventually. Neither was Flynt surprised when, after Jaune made it clear to Winter that he was worried about his physical prowess, Winter simply responded with: "You will receive training to bring you up to par. Combat is but one of the many skills we expect Specialists to master – and it's one of the least important."

Jaune supposed he owed Flynt money now, not that a bet had been officially made, but he'd been proven right and didn't mind lording it over Jaune for the following week or so. The cheeky asshole. Jaune would have had more to say about that if Penny wasn't leaving him broken and gasping for air every night, to crawl into bed with his aura so low it was a wonder his scroll could pick it up, and his body so sore that his morning jogs had become some kind of sick torture.

When she promised to make him combat ready he'd expected the training and hadn't complained about having it in the evenings before bed. What he hadn't expected was for Penny to be quite so good at it, or quite so brutal. It was like having a fitness instructor mixed with a drill sergeant. Penny was capable of explaining each and every exercise in such detail that even went into which muscle groups it worked on and why, and she pushed him through reps until his body was screaming. On the days between that, they would fight. Or, well, she would fight. He would get his ass handed to him. Penny was going to make him combat ready by breaking him down and rebuilding him, and he didn't know if his body would be able to keep up at this rate.

That their sessions took place at night and often outside in the snow only made it worse because it was bloody cold and Penny didn't seem bothered by that fact at all. Still, the combination of the extra lessons in classes and the training with Penny had led him to realise one thing – and it wasn't just that he was weak because he'd had no training before the academy. It was that he wasn't versatile enough. Even if he had been a master of the sword and shield, it was just that. Aura already was a shield, which made the usage of another one was something of a wasted opportunity. He could protect himself even further and thus save aura, but his aura reserves were already his greatest asset, so what was the point? It was like strapping extra barrels on an already perfectly functioning gun. He was overcompensating.

"I need a ranged option," he told Clover, in one of their rare one-on-one lectures. They were never official and he never knew when they would happen because the Ace-Ops had their own jobs and lives, but two times every week Clover would find an hour for him and send him a message on his scroll, and they'd meet up to talk tactics, squad command and other things. Often, it was Clover running over old stories and helping Jaune see why he'd made the calls he had, but other times Clover would present hypothetical situations.

It was during one of those that the fact struck Jaune like a hammer.

"You really do," said Clover, not missing a single beat. "The more options you or anyone on your team has, the more ways you can use them. You can spread yourself too thin if you try and master everything, but there are basics I think every specialist should have. Those are melee, ranged, evacuation and first aid."

The four key pillars of any good fight, as Clover often called them. The ability to win in melee, the ability to win in a ranged engagement, the ability to run away if winning wasn't on the cards, and the ability to patch your team up so no one died. It really did cover everything, even if "evacuation" could further be expanded in a hundred different ways. The point was to have some option for each, and preferably some redundancy to go with it. They couldn't always rely on Penny being the squad medic because she might be the one to go down.

"Do you have any suggestions?" asked Jaune.

"I do, but I'd rather you choose on your own. A weapon is a personal thing and it needs to be something you feel comfortable with. If I force one on you, you'll be less likely to want to master it."

Typical Clover. Jaune groaned. "Any advice on that, then?"

"Sure. Go to the range and go wild. Pick something that you either do well with, or if one weapon gets you all excited then go with that. Like with your melee skills, you have time enough to improve with anything. Pick whatever you like."

He almost asked Clover to come down with him and help, but remembered the man was supremely busy. Their extra specialist programme lessons weren't really set or organised things. They were all just random times and seemingly random lessons – good lessons, mind, but impossible to prep or plan for because the specialists were fitting them in between their own missions like this one. The biggest advantage was the extra access, which let them request more lessons and then have either lessons arranged for them by someone else who was proficient or have resources normally restricted opened up. It was all monitored of course; there was no way they could get away with abusing it.

So far, Flynt had been taking his extra driving lessons and was even doing flight sims, though he wouldn't be allowed to take an aircraft off-ground until he was seventeen. There were hints the Specialists might cheat and let him have a short stint in a Bullhead in a remote region with a co-pilot, but that would depend entirely on his simulator performance. In the short term, he was learning what he excitedly told them was "combat driving" which included a lot of normal driving, but also a lot of ridiculously unsafe techniques like forcing other vehicles to crash, how to escape in a chase and how to skid so that you sideswiped an enemy vehicle, slamming your armoured side into their car. Basically, they were teaching him both how to drive, and how not to drive, and Jaune wasn't sure any of them would feel safe getting in a car with Flynt in the future.

Neon had been allowed to skip ahead and take demolitions lessons, which tied in well to her mechanical and engineering ones by teaching her how to jury-rig bombs. At least, that was how Jaune understood it. Neon would just groan and say, "it's a lot more complicated than slapping scrap together to make a bomb, guys!" whenever he or Flynt asked. That didn't change the fact she could now set up a wide range of explosives for anything from demolition to clearance to breach and entry. Neon was having the time of her life.

He didn't know what Penny was learning. She told him it was software based stuff, so he assumed it was maybe hacking or how to operate computers. Everything was on them nowadays so it made sense someone be able to break into them. He'd kind of assumed all that was handled by clever viruses and such nowadays, and not someone sat at a computer tapping away like in the movies.

All in all, the programme was neither as bad as he'd feared nor as punishingly difficult as Ironwood made it sound. That was probably because it was early days and they hadn't had any of their "specialised" assessment tests yet, and Jaune wasn't entirely prepared to forget about those. It had been a month since they accepted entry into the programme, and there was one month left to their next assessment. Already, other teams were clamouring to try and find out more, putting into practice the idea of intelligence gathering and making their own deals to scout in groups and share. They'd been tricked twice now, and as much as Winter was probably planning to try and trick them again, they were alert to the idea and planning ahead. Fool them once, shame on them. Fool them twice…? Well, they weren't going to be fooled a third time. Or they were to be honest – Winter Schnee was just that cruel – but they'd damn well try and be ready for it.

The moment his session with Clover was over, Jaune headed down to the rage to try out some weapons. Mecha-shift would be nice, and he'd be able to request an upgrade to his sword, but it'd be much easier in the short term to just get a second weapon. He could then look at an upgrade to make his sword more versatile in melee range.

The Specialists didn't actually like mecha-shift much from what he'd made out. The giant – a gentle giant, as Flynt called her – Elm Ederne had said that mecha-shift weapons required motors, gears, switches and delicate mechanical components that could all weaken the overall structural integrity of a weapon. That wasn't so bad on a gun, but on a melee weapon that would constantly be striking and slamming against other ones, or against Grimm, or trees, or the ground, or whatever else they struck if an enemy dodged, it could add up and cause damage over time. The maintenance costs could be through the roof, to say nothing of the risk of it just breaking in the field.

Jaune couldn't help but imagine her angrily ranting about "those hip kids and their newfound gadgets" and he laughed to himself. Pushing into the range, he heard the usual cacophony of gunshots from those practicing and flashed his scroll against the scanner to register his entry and log the hours onto his record. Inside, he found Ciel Soleil removing a pair of headphones and placing them in the "used" pile by the weapon lockers.

"Just finishing up?" asked Jaune.

Ciel didn't hear him for a second, a consequence of the range, but when she turned and spotted him she almost jumped in place. "Oh. Jaune. Here to practice?"

"I am. I take it you're just finishing," he said again. Ciel's ears were probably ringing despite the ear protectors. "I'm looking to find a ranged weapon that suits me." He gestured to his hip, though Crocea Mors was all the way back in his locker. "My sword and shield are useful and all, but I need to be able to chip in if the Grimm are at range."

"Yes. It's wasteful to stand around waiting for them to close. You're not the only one who needs to upgrade either. Two of my teammates still refuse to adapt." Her shoulders slumped as she exhaled heavily. He could tell she'd been trying to convince them.

"They being stubborn?"

"Like you would not believe. It feels as though everyone coming here is following the rule of cool instead of any form of common sense." Ciel made finger quotes in the air as she said that, and Jaune had to bite his lip not to laugh at her. In a way, Ciel was like that bookish girl in class that just wanted to follow all the rules to the letter, except ten times as confident and not afraid to try and force you to follow the rules as well. "I told them they'd be sorry when a Grimm cuts them open because they couldn't weak it at range, and do you know what they said?"

"What?"

"That they'd accept I was right after that happens!"

"After they're grievously wounded…?"

"Exactly!" Ciel did not huff, and likely never would, but her nostrils flared angrily and it was the closest he could imagine her to it. Everyone had a limit of course, and he had the suspicion she was one of those people who would be like a flipped switch – someone with an incredible fuse, but a very short and terrifying explosion. "They act as though it's as easy as changing their minds after the fact, ignoring that their lackadaisical attitude could get us all killed. It is… frustrating."

"You're more patient than me, Ciel. I'd call it completely idiotic."

"I'm not more patient; I'm just more polite. It is idiotic and I'm thinking far worse words in my head." She sighed. "I'm just choosing not to share them."

"Don't hold back on my account."

"I must. You would not want to spend any time with me if you saw me at my angriest." He was curious now, but Ciel quickly changed the subject. "Come, let me take my frustrations out on you instead."

"Um. How exactly…?"

One eyebrow rose. "By helping you select a weapon that suits you in place of my helping them. What did you think I meant?"

Something else. That was for sure. "In the interests of preserving your current respect for me, I think I'd best not say. Yes. Please. I'd love your help."

"Hmph. Bold of you to think I respect you at all."

"Mean."

He laughed as he said it, and Ciel chuckled just one time. That was her in a nutshell. He was sure he'd not even know her this well if not for Penny, and if not for their jogging together in the mornings as well. She was the kind of girl he'd been too afraid to approach, especially when she turned her gaze on you and it was just ice cold. Ciel wasn't a bad person, nor even rude, but she was critical, analytical, and she could also be painstakingly blunt. All of that just gave off the idea of someone unapproachable, but she was surprisingly amicable otherwise. Not friendly, but not unfriendly either. Kind of a comfortable in between.

And funnily enough, there hadn't been a scrap of envy at being told they'd been entered into the specialist programme. Only a quick nod, as if she'd expected it all along, and a wish of good luck for them. When he asked if she thought she should be entered, she'd just chuckled and said "not with my current teammates. They're not good enough." Odd as it was, he sort of agreed, and he didn't doubt Ciel would make the Specialists on her own if she applied after the academy.

For now, he appreciated her help, and at least she didn't leave him broken like Penny did.

/-/

Pietro Polendina was not a normal man. He accepted that. It was less his disability and more his mind, and the manner in which he'd entertained that nebulous concept of "fatherhood" that so many men experienced in their lives. Rather than be involved in the birth of his own daughter, he had created one, and that led to all kinds of ethical questions and quandaries. Early on, he had decided – nay, demanded – that Penny be treated like a real human. His colleagues did not have to believe her such if they did not want to, but for ethical reasons they would be forced to listen to her and consider her words and feelings.

Otherwise, moments like this, when Penny's head was pulled open and hundreds of wires reached into the databanks that made up her brain, it was all too easy to see her as an empty machine. Too easy to think that you didn't need to ask her permission or consider her opinion when doing something to her, because you could just write her consent after the fact. You could just say that she didn't have a choice as she was a machine.

There had been many considerations like that, but none – none at all – as to the similarities that would come from having a robotic daughter to a real one. Pietro had thought, perhaps foolishly in hindsight, that by building the perfect daughter at an already teenage state, he could dodge all the difficult parts of being a father. True enough, he'd avoided diapers and vomit and crying and all that while still experiencing the joy of her first words, first report card and the rest. He really hadn't thought he would need to have this conversation, however. His entire body was filled with dread.

"Penny…"

"Yes father?"

"You understand that I am your father and that I care for you."

"Yes…"

"And that I love you dearly and treat you as my flesh and blood, no matter what you are made of."

"Yes." Penny sounded confused, and her eyes tracked him as he stared woodenly at his computer screen. "Is there something wrong, father?"

"Not wrong. Not… Not abnormal. Not at all." He twirled around with a pinched face and a smile stretched too wide. "It's just… how shall I put this? I just want you to understand this was an accident, a simple routine check as I always have…" He could see her confusion mounting, and he knew his avoiding the topic wasn't helping. Pietro closed his eyes and dove right in. "Penny, is there something you want to talk to me about with relation to your partner?"

"Jaune?" asked Penny. "No. Why? You know his secret and you promised not to tell."

"I see you've been training him hard."

"I have, father."

"And I see you've been downloading a lot of fitness and combat training videos to draw information from when doing so."

Which was understandable since Penny lacked muscles herself and thus had not been trained in the same way as a human had. And her partner could hardly have tactical data downloaded into his brain like Penny could. It all made perfect sense.

"Is that wrong?" asked Penny.

"No. No. It's just… while checking up on you I… well…" There was no easy way to say it. "I couldn't help but notice the other things you've been searching for online." He winced. "Your browser history."

Penny's face went blank.

"DIAGNOSTIC MODE ENTERED."

Pietro sighed. "Penny, you haven't entered diagnostic mode."

"A FATAL ERROR HAS OCCURRED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEND A CRASH REPORT?"

"Penny, you can't pretend this conversation isn't happening." He wheeled himself toward his daughter, noting how her eyes were shaking hundreds of times per second. Penny could not blush like a human could, but she could show subtle signs of panic. This was one of them. "It's perfectly normal to be… curious. For you more than anyone. All of life is new to you, and yes, I suppose I should have expected there would be… other things that would catch your attention."

Boys.

Pietro had never thought he'd be having this conversation with a robotic daughter. Make a robot daughter, they said. It'll be easier, they said. They had no idea. Now here he was, wondering how to explain the birds and the bees to someone made of alloy and circuit boards. Was it to be the transistor and the diode? The hard drive and the floppy disc? Or maybe he should tell her about the motherboard and the ram.

"You were created from a piece of my own soul…" began Pietro, then faltered as he wondered – for a brief moment – if that meant his soul was lusting over a young boy, and whether that ought to reflect badly on him. He pushed on valiantly. "And that means you see the world as any person would. You're experiencing new things, meeting new people, and yes I suppose that does mean you have the capacity to develop feelings. Of friendship, of admiration, of loyalty and of…" He glanced back at the screen. "Oiled-up blonde men wrestling."

Penny's eyes snapped back. "FATHER!"

"It's just us here, Penny. No one will judge you."

"No! Stop! Just wipe it from my memory banks! Wipe this from my memory banks as well!"

"I won't do that," said Pietro, kindly. "And there is nothing wrong with being curious about things. You've lived a very sheltered life and then suddenly been dropped on a team with three other people, having only known Ciel as a person your own age. It's to be expected there will be things to learn, and you've done fantastically so far."

"This is not happening," whispered Penny. "It must be a virus. I am being attacked and am being forced to hallucinate."

Pietro touched her hand. "You're allowed to have feelings, Penny."

"I am a machine."

"There are some people who like that." He blushed. "As you know, since I saw you searching up the AI and ROBOT tags on that websi-"

"FATAL ERROR-"

"Penny, it's fine. There's nothing wrong with that."

"There is everything wrong with this conversation," said Penny. "And I feel an incredible desire to run away and escape it as soon as possible. Is that normal?"

"I'd say it's normal. Yes."

"I won't talk about the specific things you've been searching, then," said Pietro. He didn't want to either, since Penny had been looking up toys online, and since she did not have… well, the relevant parts, he had to assume she was curious if they could be added to her.

Have a robot daughter, they said.

Bastards.

Human daughters couldn't come to you and ask for a boob job and literally mean that they wanted you to install new breast units. Or worse, other parts. He hadn't made Penny with that kind of functionality in mind – and for obvious reasons! – but he had promised to treat her as his daughter, and he did love her, and if she asked him with all her heart for this…? What was he to do? He knew what. He'd do what he had to in order to make her happy, no matter how uncomfortable it made him.

"What I will say is that if you want to get closer to your partner then you will need to come clean about what you are sooner or later," said Pietro. He saw Penny's eyes flick his way as she listened. "I know we've talked about this before, and I know General Ironwood wants you to keep it a secret, but it was always expected someone close to you would know. That's what Ciel Soleil was for. I doubt he would have an issue with Jaune Arc knowing. So long as you trust him to keep it a secret."

"What if he hates me, father?"

Pietro laid his hand upon hers. "I do not think he will. But, in the very unlikely case that he does, then isn't it better to find that out now and have less heartbreak, than to discover it later when you are even closer?" Penny looked afraid. That a machine could was a marvel in itself, but it tugged at Pietro's heart. "I will be here if you need me, Penny. You know that. But if you trust him then I believe there is a good reason for that. You can't live in fear of what he might say forever, or someone less afraid to speak their feelings will come and take him from you."

"Who would take him?"

"I don't know. It's just a piece of advice. You're not the first girl – or person, really – to hold onto their feelings and not say them, then to lose out because the person they like either moves on or you miss your opportunity. It's…" He tried to think of a good analogy. "It's like having a bullet in a gun, and never using it on a Grimm because you're afraid you might need it later. If you never use that bullet and never fire that gun, then you might get hurt by the Grimm getting closer to you. And even if you did fire and miss, or even if you hit it and it doesn't die, you can always reload. It might feel like the end of the world to fail, but it isn't. There will always be other chances, other bullets, other boys and other Grimm."

Penny looked at him. "That was a terrible metaphor, father…"

"Do I look like I was made to be a father, Penny!? I'm doing my best here!"

She giggled. "And you are a good father, even if you don't believe it." Her eyes closed, and though she didn't look calm by any means, he could tell she felt a little better. "I will think on what you have said, father. Can you…?"

"Get your update over with?"

"Well, yes, but also maybe stay out of my browser history?"

"Believe me, Penny. I'm going to be too scared to look in there again. There are some things a father does not want to see."

/-/

"How are your new trainees doing?" asked General Ironwood, in a rare moment when he had no work on hand, and when Clover was reporting back from a mission. There had been rumours of White Fang presence outside a small mostly faunus village in Atlas. The village, despite its prevalence of faunus, was loyal to Atlas and had raised the alarm when they saw masked individuals snooping about. Luckily, it had been some idiots playing pranks, but it was better to be sure about such things. Clover had called it a fun training experience for Marrow if nothing else.

"I've mostly been dealing with Arc while the others take on relevant members," said Clover. "He's… interesting."

"Good interesting? Bad interesting?"

"In the middle. He's clever when he needs to be, oddly dumb when he doesn't, and he's flexible. I like that. When I tailored a lesson toward versatility, he was quick to realise he wasn't and then decided to go and fix it. There are a lot of people too stubborn to admit their flaws. He certainly isn't."

"That's all good. Where is the bad?"

"I'd say he's too quick to admit to flaws. Too quick to find fault in himself."

"Confidence issues?"

"Almost certainly. Nothing too bad," assured Clover. Nothing that would make him a poor candidate for a leader, he meant. It was harsh, but the military had standards that weren't always nice. People with issues needed to get over said issues if they wanted to lead squads. "It's more of the young guy jitters. And he's terrified of letting his team down. He's definitely on of those blame themselves types. If a mission goes wrong, he's going to take it on his head."

"The next assessment will take care of that," said Ironwood. "He'll adapt. Or he'll drop out."

"I think he has it in him to get over it. I didn't sense anything unsurmountable from him, just the usual kind of teenage doubt and self-criticism we see in every batch of students. He is weaker than his teammates physically and he knows it, but he's asked for extra combat training to catch up. He has good awareness."

Awareness meant more than most would give it credit for. If you could be aware of every weakness of yourself then you could fix it, and you could be taught to turn that awareness out so that you could analyse your opponents as well. General Ironwood had long been a believer that those who suffered from flaws but corrected them were stronger than those who did not suffer at all, if only because there was a mathematically greater degree of improvement from someone who had to catch up first and then excel.

"How is he in your tactical exercises? Is his leadership as good as his assessment scores indicate?"

"He's cautious. Always looks to ensure his team survives first. In the few exercises I played against – which he all lost – he tends to have a strong beginning but come undone the moment I put someone in danger. He rushes to try and rescue them and compromises the team." Nothing too unusual; that was how most people started. He'd be more concerned if Arc threw his people away. "What I will say is that he's patient. Up in the air whether it's too patient, but if you ever have a mission that requires an objective done with ample time then he'll be your squad leader. And if that mission requires everyone to get out undetected and alive, then even better."

"Black Ops, then?"

Clover shrugged. Atlas didn't really run black ops on account of their only enemy being Grimm and terrorists, and both being so detestable that any operation was good PR. Still, that didn't mean they didn't keep people around for if that ever became required. "He might balk at anything too morally questionable, but he'll be good at getting in, getting the job done and getting everyone out without leaving any evidence behind."

"Excellent. Vale, then. During the festival. Do you think he will fit Winter's proposal there?"

"I think he – and the whole team – will do perfectly, sir. But I'd say we see how they perform on the upcoming assessment first."

"Upcoming?" asked Ironwood. "It's a full month away."

"Everyone else's assessments are." Clover smiled darkly. "But we warned them their assessments would be uniquely tailored to them. Nowhere in that did I or Winter say they would run at the same times as the others, or that they would have advance warning."

General Ironwood considered that, closed his eyes, and chuckled.

"You and Winter take too much pleasure in this. Very well. You have my permission but do your best to limit disruption to the rest of the school. If you are doing what I think you are doing, then I'll ask you to do it late at night."

"Oh, I planned on it. Easier to kidnap someone when they're asleep after all."


Poor Pietro thought being a father would be easy because his daughter is a robot.

The fool.

THE FOOL!

"Father, I have been looking up potential new attachments and upgrades."

"Oh really? What kind?"

"I need an oven."

"You want to cook?"

"Yes. Pies."

"What kind? Blueberry?"

"No. A Jaune pie."

"Your… teammate…?"

"According to my online research, he will provide me with a creampie. I believe I will need an oven to properly cook it, and from that pie will come our children."

"…"


Next Chapter: 17th December

Like my work? Please consider supporting me, even if it's only a little a month or even for a whole year, so I can keep writing so many stories as often as I do. Even a little means a lot and helps me dedicate more time and resources to my work.

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur