"Is something the matter?" Clover wasn't sure what to say; Penny had been much quieter than usual, leaving him to wonder if the scene before had more of an effect on her than he'd previously assumed.

"I am currently performing at my utmost capabilities." She responded in her usual tone, however there seemed to be much less excitement than what was ordinarily held within her speech. Okay, now that pretty much confirmed for him right then and there that she wasn't feeling her best. It was funny: never once did he believe he'd be fretting over the emotional state of a machine, but then again, Penny was so much more than that.

Especially to the doctor.

Clover didn't know much, but what he did understand was that the 'Penny Project', while immensely important to everybody onboard, was deeply personal for Mr. Polendina. While a scientist at heart, with a more than grand love of machines, he'd been set on the project in a way that was different from most. While he may have been a father to Penny, he had been so long before her creation. It was here, upon walking in and at one point inquiring his parental tendencies during one of Penny's upgrading's, that he learned the truth, right from the man himself.

To put it lightly, while he didn't wear it anymore due to worries of it getting scuffed by the machinery, Dr. Polendina possessed something special, which nowadays sat innocently in a small glass cabinet. The tiny silver ring, a bond of love once proudly worn upon the finger, now remained sealed away, never to be touched again. It acted as a reminder of the life he once had. The doctor never met his flesh and blood daughter, no, he only knew she would have been a girl.

Tragically, neither her, nor her mother, made it.

Sometimes Clover wondered what it would be like to have a family, and if he'd worry about succumbing to the fate Mr. Polendina had. He always managed to keep a jolly air about him though, and while Penny may have been more a creation of engineering, she was still a daughter in the old man's eyes.

Maybe that was why he'd been willing to sacrifice a chunk of his aura for her so effortlessly.

"It's okay to tell people things." The little girl, the same one they'd liberated from that haunted building, spoke so innocently that one would question if she'd even faced hardship at all.

Inky was her name... and that was about all they'd managed to get from her. Clover had, upon checking her over with Dr. Polendina, put out word to both his contacts higher up in Atlas as well as the local police force within Mantle itself about a missing girl. Strangely enough, they'd yet to hear anything back. It hadn't been that long since he made the information public, but usually they'd have some responses within the hour, at least recently that was - since the embargo, news of missing persons cases passed around at bullet speed; perhaps due to the fact that everything was so contained.

It didn't exactly help that they couldn't get a last name out of her, and so they'd just stuck with Inky.

"I am speaking the truth. Do not worry." Penny knelt down, patting the girl's head lightly with a smile. Inky, however, just shook her head from side to side.

"Not all of it." Apparently the kid could see it too. Maybe it was because they were both girls - in Inky's eyes anyway - that they so quickly grew on each other, but from the short while they stayed together, Inky was by far the most comfortable around Penny. Clover never knew a child could open up so quickly, especially one who'd been tied up in a closet to act as a warning.

Penny's smile faltered a little, turning more towards a flat line than its more natural looking curve. Those four words were what broke through the doubt, and the protector of Mantle sat, cross legged, before clasping her hands.

"You... are correct: I am obscuring a few details." Penny paused for a second, with a mild bit of confliction etching itself into the crescents of her expression. "Although, I find said details somewhat difficult to explain. I feel as though I might instill an incorrect sense upon everyone as I try to explain, one I do not wish to imply."

"It's okay, just try your best." Inky sat down as well, crossing her legs just like Penny, and meeting eyes with the larger girl. "If you get it wrong, then you can just try again."

It wasn't a bad idea, heck, it was probably one of the smartest ways of looking at a situation Clover had ever seen; honestly, he wished some of his fellow students would fancy that type of outlook. But, being the mostly negative and prideful adults that they were, he knew such a wish was asking a little too much; although, that wouldn't stop himself from adopting a few traits of Inky's outlook - somewhat at least, as being an adult meant he contained the experience necessary to know when to mix and match traits of various perspectives to fit the given scenario.

"I am worried that I might not be overlooking my current handling of affairs correctly." Penny crossed her arms, pondering her verbal thoughts. "During my time in Vale, as the Vytal Festival commenced, we had a situation with the White Fang. Much chaos was displayed over both the city and the academy, and while I did my absolute best to capture as many criminals as I could, I was unable to subdue them all."

So it was a sense of internal doubt: yep, Penny was turning out more Human than most who actively fit the definition. Clover watched as her face scrunched even worse, with her eyelids beginning to droop, forming what he believed was a scolding expression.

"I did my best, and I am perfectly fine with the results because of that, but I encountered this strange feeling towards the members of the White Fang... one I am having trouble categorizing." She then hummed; a Human habit Clover believed she'd picked up during her excursion to Vale. "It is the same feeling I get when I see the Grimm attacking people. It makes me want to fight harder."

Wait... Makes her want to fight? Clover wasn't exactly comfortable hearing that, especially when she mentioned the Grimm. He himself got a myriad of feelings when facing both the terrorist group and Grimm, but despite who he fought, the emotions he felt always included one who'd always been present during each encounter and battle, no matter how difficult or severe.

Anger.

Was Penny... was she learning how to feel angry? On the surface it didn't sound that odd, but while she looked and acted Human, underneath that exterior was a creation capable of over a hundred times more destruction. Sure, hunters had varying degrees of power when it came to the amount of damage they could dish out in any given moment, but they also had years of training and temperament to restrain themselves. Penny was learning about these emotions for what was essentially the first time, and it had the leader of the Ace-Ops now wondering if she could drum up that same temperament. Teenagers and children were infamous for their inability to control themselves, but that was fine because they were usually weak and innocent; most of their outbursts were vocal at best, and they weren't capable of any real trouble. Children took years to develop the maturity to control their emotions, but Penny didn't have that luxury.

Penny needed to face these challenges now.

"Maybe you're just mad?" The answer lined up with what Clover assumed, however Inky didn't cut it off there. "They hurt people right?"

"Yes, both groups are the cause of much destruction." Penny answered, paying apt attention to the little girl before her who threw on a determined face.

"Hurting people is wrong." She said it like it was some grand mystery. "And hurting people makes them feel bad. But seeing people get hurt makes us feel bad too. When I see someone bully somebody else, it makes me angry because I know bullying hurts. It's wrong to hurt people, and I don't like seeing people hurt; it makes me mad at the person who did it. I want to tell them to stop, because they shouldn't be hurting people, and they're being bad.

Inky was trying her best to explain something, but unfortunately, while Clover prided himself on his ability to analyze the situation, he was honestly having a bit of trouble here. It was a simple idea, but because of that, he found it difficult to tie into a bigger picture. Penny interrupted his thoughts, drawing his ears back to the conversation.

"I see, so this 'mad' is a response to the emotion of anger." Penny tilted her head. "But, what does being 'mad' do? Why do we feel it?"

And that was a question Clover felt was a bit too philosophical for a little kid... but Inky gave an answer anyway.

"Because it lets us know what's right and wrong." She said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "If we feel sad or angry, then something's wrong: it's how we know bad things are bad."

That... was a little too simple of an answer, especially if you thought about it deeper. Anger was, at its very core, an emotional response to distress. Most of the time much of the anger is misdirected or outright unjust. But, taking a second to absorb what Inky said, Clover couldn't outright say she was wrong. He was just thinking about it the wrong way: he'd approached it from a morals and law perspective, but Inky - being the child she was - probably meant it quite literally, and in that case she was somewhat right.

Anger and sadness were emotional responses to distress: reactions to outside forces of either physical or mental nature which upset the individual in some way. Moral or immoral; lawful or unlawful; regardless of where they stood in life, the individual experiencing such emotions perceived the cause as maleficent.

Clover had to stop himself there, he was getting way too wrapped up in the idea, which was proven when Penny smiled and nodded.

"I see: it is a negative response towards what one perceives as a potential threat."

That was an apt description, and here he was, feeling like he'd gotten way in over his head again. Disregarding Clover's internal realization that he was being mentally one-upped by what amounted to two children, Penny seemed to be doing much better now.

"Thank you for helping me discover what these feelings were." The little girl's response to Penny's gratitude was to puff out her chest and smirk.

"You're welcome: I am very smart, you know. If you have questions, just ask me." And there it was, going to the kid's head. The leader of the Ace-Ops chose to, rather than say anything, just shake his own head in the background: out of sight from the two. The child was clearly doing alright - or was at least acting like it - and Penny appeared to have let go of her swelling anger, which meant the chances of her doing something rash on accident had just dropped by a full thirty percent - a win in his books.

"And how are we all doing, hmm?" The question twisted the eyes of everyone present, and all of them faced the doctor with varying levels of appreciation. Penny, of course, was ecstatic to see her father figure, and popped from her place on the floor with a small hop of joy.

"Father!" Paradoxically, she stilled all motion after the shout for half a second before setting her fists on her hips and striking a somewhat heroic pose. "We are doing magnificent!"

"Yeah!" Inky went along with it, hitting that exact same pose and somehow reaching the same levels of joy as the girl who quite literally hadn't yet learned how to balance appropriate amounts of emotion. Seeing this, Dr. Polendina chuckled, and looked over at Clover. Being the only one left, and now having both girls cast a glance back at him, he saw the way Inky's brow furrowed in confusion, and he knew why: she was waiting for him to give that same giddy response.

Relenting with an eye roll and setting his fists on his hips, Clover made sure to tense every single muscle in his body as he took a step forward and, in his deepest and most heroic - the attempt's quality was dependant on the opinions and tastes of the individual - voice he could pull from the pits of his gut, he sounded off.

"Yes, we are!"

He could tolerate the giggles of the girls, and the 'ha-ha' face Dr. Polendina was very obviously trying to hide. While they fooled around carefree enough, Inky was still a missing and previously abducted child; no kid comes out of that type of situation unscathed. But... if a few giggles and humiliation was enough to keep them complacent, at least long enough for them to get Inky taken care of, then who was Clover to shoot down the fun.

A little silliness wouldn't hurt.

.


.

"No way!" Nora was staring wide eyed as Maria nodded, her goggles half lidded in a strange form of squinting. Honestly, none of them knew what to make of the odd sight, but seeing as her goggles acted more like eyelids, they just brushed it off; it wasn't like the weirdness really mattered, not with how their lives were going.

"Oh yes, and I tell you, they were quite the fearsome bunch." Smirking deviously, the elderly woman lifted her arms and spread them wide. "I can't quite stretch out wide enough, but those vermin were around this large... hmm, maybe a bit bigger."

Nora had, as was in her typical fashion, began their first moments of reprieve with a story that may, or may not, have been a dream. The girl insisted this one was real, and like always, any looks to Ren were met with squat; he wasn't out here confirming nor denying anything, and so both Jaune and Pyrrha would remain in the dark. It wasn't so bad though: Nora's sense of overly bombastic storytelling at least helped to keep everyone's minds off the fact they now possessed world-ending relics of the gods.

Ruby made the decision not to tell the general about certain information, and that was fine: as was the plan, they would all follow along with what the leader of team RWBY had in mind. Although Pyrrha herself had a few opinions of her own on the subject, she chose to keep her thoughts from rushing down that particular river.

"Woah..." Nora had this sort of distant glisten in her eyes, one filled with shimmering gold. "How many of them were there?"

"Imagine a wide open field, filled to the brim with beasties. Got that?"

"Yeah." Nora's imagination twisted her features as she chiseled a look of pure excitement onto the marble of her face.

"Good." Maria hummed with a nod. "It was double whatever it is you're imagining."

And Nora perked her expression up again, somewhat broken... or rather, more like an overfilled water balloon which just popped. Internally, Pyrrha giggled, relaxing and basking in the lighthearted nonsense that was her team's antics. Who knew how long the sense of comfort would last? Despite the flickering of chaos's flame on the horizon, the corrupted woman wouldn't exactly stake a claim on the dread most would assume she'd be feeling.

No, Pyrrha had come to terms with it all.

Back when she'd first been saved, when she'd first been changed into the Human-Grimm hybrid: Pyrrha had been afraid. This sense of fear only rose with each passing night, as every so often she'd dream dreams that weren't hers. She never understood at first, but being here, in this place, and having seen what she'd seen up to this point: Pyrrha Niko could almost say she understood what was going on.

It wasn't a perfect realization; heck, it bordered more on a gut feeling than anything, but even an emotionally driven theory still toyed with ideas of logic in a sense. Every now and then she'd hear things that weren't said; imagine scenarios of how current events could go, that didn't go that way; dream of a world where she wasn't alive: all of this from the perspective of Ruby.

"Hey." Jaune's hand on her arm plucked the woman back into the present, and Pyrrha shot a small glance his way upon hearing the whisper. His face was marred with a light sprinkle of concern. "You doing okay?"

She answered his worries with a relaxed and content smile.

"I'm fine." For once in her life it was true, as while her experiences so far would put anyone else into a state of panic, for Pyrrha, the conclusion she drew from it all erected a pillar of ease. Slipping her opposite hand over his, she brought it down to the table, and watched as the boy blushed a tiny bit, looking away. Nevertheless he eased up, and Pyrrha then saw how his face shifted to despair, as it had when Ruby saw him watching that video of her, long after she'd died: she knew this wasn't real.

In the present, outside of that alternate vision just now, he smiled lightly, bearing a small bit of embarrassment on his part. Her expression was sentimental. He surely didn't understand why, but Pyrrha did. She understood why she felt so peaceful, even if nobody else ever could.

Pyrrha Nikos, the invincible woman, was a believer in the concept that was fate. Since she'd been little, and upon realizing her semblance for the first time, she'd come to the understanding that she was born for a purpose. For many years she'd believed it was to help people, to instill in them a sense of hope for whatever challenges they faced. None would fear the Grimm, not when she proudly wore that mask of unstoppability.

The visions, however, enlightened her: cutting away the shackles of those previously false beliefs.

That world she saw in her mind, time and time again during certain nightfall's, had sparked strange rationalizations. In these dreams, she was most certainly gone, but she wasn't the only one. V wasn't in a single one of those displays either, not even in reference, and it was here Pyrrha began to wonder. Some of the dreams felt... off, as if they were distant from one another, and would you know it, V himself was from an era long past. Jinn had confirmed travel to the past impossible, but that was just it: the past. V was, at this point, practically confirmed as having left his position in time to meet them in the modern day.

V didn't act like an old man, and they'd already assumed he'd come to the future in some way, so didn't that mean traveling through time was perfectly possible? Going to the future, if one could send themselves there, then wouldn't it stand to reason that things aside from people could sail through the currents of time as well?

Perhaps even ideas… or memories.

Had V's theoretical displacement in time altered fate itself in some way? Had he changed destiny to an extent by stepping beyond the bindings of time? It was both hopeful and horrifying to think about, and yet Pyrrha had a feeling she was onto something. In her dreams and visions, Yang - for example - possessed a mechanical arm, having lost the original presumably during Beacon's fall. Other sights included paradoxical events, such as one dream having Ruby and Yang standing over Weiss's grave, while another had Weiss clutching tight the lifeless body of that very same blonde.

Blake had mentioned paradox, and spawned the idea of how history - if time manipulation did exist - would correct severe enough mistakes: erasing impossibility. Was such a thing the will of destiny too?

"Hey guys."

"Oscar!" Nora rushed to grab the boy, sitting him down and leaving him in a brief daze. "What took you so long? We're just getting to the good part!"

And then there was Oscar. He was in some of the visions too, albeit in various states. One thing she knew for certain, however, was that in almost all of the visions he appeared, Ozpin was always hiding the same secrets, secrets which lined up with what they'd learned from Jinn. And yet, in those dreams of Jinn's tale, V again was not present, and neither was the woman who looked so much like an older Ruby. With this understanding, Pyrrha crafted the idea that these visions of hers were other fates, perhaps other potential histories which might have come to be, had it not been for V, and perhaps - if Ruby's initial idea was true - Ruby herself. Jinn said it wasn't possible to go back, but a foreign part of Pyrrha, leaking from her alteration, believed the woman they saw was related to the girl in some way.

Maybe she was Ruby, or maybe not; either way, Pyrrha knew they were linked, as the darkness screaming within her felt it was so.

"Sorry." The boy tossed on a sheepish face. "I kind of spent a bunch of time trying to see if I could get the headmaster to come out again."

"Oh..." Nora dropped her intensity by quite a bit. "So... how did it go?"

"I got nothing." Upon hearing that, Maria gave the kid a couple pats on the back, earning his attention.

"Don't let it get to you: he has to come out at some point. It's only a matter of time before he comes crawling back with excuses and apologies."

He'd tell of how his trust was eroded over the years, coming back on claims of giving true trust a chance again: claims which would turn to action as he'd inevitably keep his word. Pyrrha had seen it before, in multiple scenarios, but each time the outcome was the same. Interestingly, it was these similarities where Pyrrha felt most relaxed. Despite the seeming flexibility of fate, it appeared some things were always set in stone.

One of which was her death.

She didn't know the time, or even the place, but in every single display, each of them were killed at one point, and the cause was never peaceful. The moments of sameness were how she could tell if something was truly destined, and while it was based on theory, something deep inside told Pyrrha she was at least partially right.

Something within her own soul whispered these feelings, or rather, they came from the distinctly separate energy coursing through her body, courtesy of V. Strangely enough, it felt so similar to her own aura, so much so that, if she didn't know any better, she'd assume V had imparted a snippet of his soul onto her, thus infecting her with its dark essence.

In the end her thoughts were nothing but speculation of what could have been, all in an attempt to make sense of the world. Thinking of it - even with these dark ideas - still put her mind at ease though. Most, if not all, would ask how playing with those terrible scenarios could possibly be peaceful. Pyrrha Nikos believed in destiny, but not only that: she also believed that destiny itself was pure and good. If fate dictated that they all died, then there must have been a good reason for it, one that would ultimately aid in the coming future: in the fight against everlasting darkness.

She didn't want to die, and she didn't want her friends to die either, but if death was the only way to set everything right, then what right did they have in denying it?

For a second she felt like chuckling, but held it in, instead setting her eyes on the others watching keenly as Maria continued on with her tale of foregone heroics. Something clicked in her mind, a thought she hadn't considered before, one involving Salem. The queen of Grimm was immortal, deathless and eternal, and yet she'd suffered endlessly because of it. The inability to die forever locked her spirit out of the next step in the journey of life, and because of it she suffered - that was the way Pyrrha herself saw it anyways.

They would all die, but it would be for the better, and while the idea somewhat scared her, she just knew that, somehow, everything would alright.

.


.

"Is that all?"

I nodded and watched as the general shut his eyes, all the while Raven crossed her arms with a smirk. The woman was certainly a lot more appreciative about the news than Ironwood, but I didn't exactly hold it against him considering it was one of his own students I'd injured. Interestingly enough, no matter how much I looked back on it, I couldn't exactly tell what it was I'd done to him.

Weiss mentioned there were no visible wounds, but leaving a man collapsed on the ground pretty much ruled out any ideas that the power was harmless.

"Those... 'obelisks', or, whatever you called it, do they always give you new toys to play with?"

"To my recollection, yes." The words only seemed to spur her on harder, to the point her smirk was nearing demonic. I'd not seen what most people would call an 'evil smile' since Cinder, so this was an interesting reminder of how malicious intent appeared. There was Adam, but his grin was more along the lines of a challenger, rather than the 'I'm going to use you' atmosphere that Raven's current look exuded.

"Interesting..." She stayed her tongue there, but I could see she still had something on her mind. It didn't matter: whatever she was thinking certainly didn't dictate the 'now', especially if she was staying quiet about it.

"We're not using it." Ironwood had his focus set in place again, and I saw his brow furrow. "At least, not until we know what it does."

"Well, we won't find out if we don't let him use it." Raven passed casually, with a little bit of a snarky twist turning her tone near the end. The man crossed his arms, sending a slight glare at the woman.

"Of course not. What I mean is we're not testing it here: on Atlas personnel."

"But you're fine with him using it on anyone else, is that about right?" Raven waved her hand in a dismissive motion, rolling her eyes as she settled back on staring his way. "Surely you know how bad that sounds, right?"

"I'm well aware, however, I'm also within the understanding that, while able to cripple on the spot, it doesn't leave any permanent damage."

"How do you know that? Might just be a mental attack. There's a chance your boy's become a puddle of mush upstairs."

General Ironwood shot a gaze that said- no, commanded her to shut up. Raven smiled a little less evil this time, taking a step away and nudging her head to me. I couldn't exactly write her idea off either. I knew something commenced an attack, I literally saw a ghostly rendition of my own veins latch onto the monk, and the result afterwards was instant. Whether he'd had his mind ripped apart I couldn't say for sure, only that I'd downed him.

"We'll just have to wait and see." It left no room for continued debate, and he turned to me with a rigid click. "In the meantime, I want you to stay up here in the academy, at least until we have Vine back with us."

"Limiting him already?"

"No. I'm ensuring his ability has valid merit; for all we know it just stunned him. If he comes back perfectly fine after an hour or so, then we'll know the power's only purpose is to subdue, labeling it safe to use on any opponent."

An interesting and well reasoned idea, but as I thought back on it, I found it sounding a little less believable. That power, whatever it was, created such a violent and downright ravenous lust within me that I wouldn't dare chance it as being solely to subdue. It was as if my aura itself was starving for sustenance, lasing out and draining whatever it could bite down on with its jaws. I never felt my aura recover though, so I ruled out the idea it might be draining to restore itself. However, I knew the force yearned to bite, and so I let it.

"And by that, you mean it'll be fine to use on rowdy civilians too, right?" Raven's grin stretched wide, and strangely, the general said nothing, at which point she hummed and paced around him. "The election for that seat on the council has people split, some of which are getting fairly violent."

"We'll do what's necessary to keep the people safe." He spoke with steadfast determination, but I could feel Raven's words as they picked through the air: infectious with doubt.

"To keep them safe, or keep them under control?"

"Sometimes, they're both one and the same." For a second it felt as though he himself didn't believe what just dribbled out of his mouth, but soon, any sense of restraint was erased, leaving only the hollow statement stiff as stone. "It isn't preferable, but if it's necessary, then we'll do what we must."

"Uh huh..." Raven took a few steps back, leaning against his desk and staring with a crooked eye. "And how many times have you told yourself that?"

It was brief, but his eyes for a moment looked to fade, and I was reminded that these were people I was speaking with.

"Too many."


Author's note

...

This chapter was a little all over the place, but whatever.

A little bit of the forgotten ones made their stakes this time, because no, I didn't forget about them - be honest, some of you believed I had.

Clover and Penny get a moment to shine, with Penny becoming more and more Human by the day. Ironically, she's contrasting with Pyrrha a little, who thinks more and more in line with the metaphysical, and right now, our little half Grimm is reasoning away her dreams and visions: this can only end well.

Until next time.