On maps of the Beacon campus, there was a building labeled "Weapons Fabrication and Maintenance Facility". Even to Penny, who didn't much mind calling things by their full formal names, that was a mouthful. She wasn't surprised that everyone, including the teacher who worked there, called it something else: the Forge.

This, in Penny's opinion, went too far the other way. While the building had a forge, it was so much more. That was people for you, she supposed: they could give a thing two names, one too complex and one too simple, and still not reach the heart of the matter.

"Why are we going to the Forge, again?" said Blake.

"Because Professor Mesquite recommended you upgrade your weapon to handle rounds with Dust payloads," said Penny, "and I need to rework my weapon, so I saw we could go together for efficiency and comradery."

"There's no one else who talks like you do, is there?"

"I suspect there is not," said Penny.

The two were walking along the paths leading from the dorms to the Forge. It was a bright weekend morning; with no classes to worry about, they had plenty of time to work on weapons and bond, two of Penny's absolute favorite things to do.

Blake took her weapon from its stow on her back and held it across her hands. "I've had Gambol Shroud for a while now," she said. "It took a lot of practice and trial-and-error to master. I'm not sure I want to go and mess with that. Not with something so close to me."

"That's why we're pursuing this specific upgrade," said Penny. "The weapon will function exactly the same at base, just with more options. This costs you nothing while adding value. We should always be trying to get better, shouldn't we? Especially with such a low-cost change as this!"

Blake said nothing, instead staring at her weapon some more. It reminded Penny of Ren's default state of blank unreadability. Penny found Ren unnerving. Neither Analysis nor Tactical could get any read on him, and both cautioned against staying in his presence.

This wasn't quite the same, because Penny could tell Blake was fully engrossed in thinking about her weapon, no doubt giving her Analysis subroutine all the processor cycles she could spare. Penny just didn't know what about her weapon Blake was so concerned with.

Well, she had to try something. "If it helps, I am looking to make a much bigger change to my weapon."

The words shook Blake out of whatever funk she'd been in. "You're changing your weapon?"

"Oh yes," said Penny. "My duel with Weiss in particular showed how vulnerable I am to being outranged. While I still believe that the best use of my superior physique is to deal heavy physical damage, it would be good to have some ranged options."

Penny drew her scroll, shifted to holo, and displayed the new schematic. "This is my design for Elektra 2.0," she said proudly.

Blake's eyes went wide. "It's two swords," she said in surprise.

"Yes," said Penny, "specifically, Paired Double-Breadth Dust-Amplified Long Swords. Each sword is 20% lighter than the original Elektra. More importantly, each one has a coaxial rifle built-in. The big challenge was fitting the firing mechanism and magazine into the hilt, so the magazine size is only five rounds, and reloading is inelegant to say the least. However, it should be enough for now, and I'll continue to refine the design as I practice with it."

"It's two swords," Blake said again.

"Yes?" Penny said slowly, unsure of Blake's problem.

"You'll have to use a completely different fighting style for that," said Blake. "I know from experience. When I redesigned my sheath so that I could use it as a weapon, I had to retrain my style around using two swords instead of one. Won't that be a big problem for you? Especially if you think you might change weapons again?"

The simple, honest answer was 'no'. Penny knew how to use paired long swords perfectly fine. She'd already pulled up the programming for using paired long swords. The only part that would require training was incorporating the guns.

She had programming on how to wield a dozen other weapons, too. She could have chosen any of them for her new weapon without loss of proficiency.

Which she was now seeing was the problem, because normal people built that proficiency only with training over time.

For all Penny knew, that was how she'd learned to use these weapons in the past, through practice and trial-and-error. For all she knew, she'd built those software packages the same way organic students learned. Her past, as ever, was a black box.

How old was she? She didn't know. How had she come by so much combat programming? She didn't know. Why was she proficient at using weapons she didn't own? She didn't know that, either. She didn't even know where to begin a search for who could answer those questions. S+he could only assume that she was meant to be ready for anything.

Ah. That suggested her way out.

"I am proficient with many kinds of weapons," Penny said as she tiptoed around Jiminy, "but I am short on practical experience. I learned how to fight before I knew which of those weapons would work best for a Huntress. My experiences inform my new choices, and I'm sure I will learn more as we go."

Blake shook her head. "Whoever trained you chose a really unorthodox approach. Most people change weapons once or twice at most. It's too hard to become an expert at lots of different weapons."

"Oh!" said Penny hastily with a point of her finger. "It appears we have arrived!"

It was true, and also an excuse to end that part of the conversation. By her expression, Blake wasn't fooled, but she let it go.

When they entered the Forge, they didn't go straight to the actual physical forge, nor to any of the weaponsmithing machines that populated the workspace (many of which were in use). As thrilling as that would be—and as eager as Penny was to put those mighty machines to work for her again—they went instead to the office to see the on-duty weapon master.

"Mornin', ladies," said Professor Mesquite.

"I'm surprised to see you here," said Blake. "You don't get weekends off?"

"I do, sure, in theory," said Professor Mesquite, "but Miss Pallas here set up an appointment, an' I get so excited about these things I can't help myself. As if I'd leave a TA in charge of a project like this! A'ight, show me the plans you ladies have drawn up."

"I'm actually not that far along," said Blake. "I need some help with the composition."

"No problem, we'll crack open my copy of Braum's Metallurgy for Weaponsmiths as soon as I get Miss Pallas situated. Speaking of, what've ya got for me?"

Once more Penny displayed her holo of her weapon's schematics. Professor Mesquite looked them over with a discerning eye. "Now those are some interesting choices," he said. "The barrel of a rifle being in the middle of the blade… You realize this'll be awful at thrusts, right?"

"Yes, these swords are primarily for slashing," said Penny. "If I do end up having to thrust, I can always fire the rifles for extra damage, and use the recoil to disengage."

Professor Mesquite hummed thoughtfully at that. "You kept the Gravity Dust amplification, but you lost the Burn Dust amp?"

"Gravity increases the striking power, but the Burn Dust was more showy than practical. I know display is an important part of the psychology of the Huntress profession, but that display seemed of minimal value for how much it complicated the design. That metal would be better used in the barrels and chambers of the rifles."

"That's the way you do it," enthused Professor Mesquite. "Reuse the metal and you keep the Aura resonance. Way better than starting from scratch. Still… only Gravity and Burn? If you're reforging, why not go the extra step and let your weapon handle any Dust? Give you a full toolbox."

"I am still iterating on type of weapon, never mind what Dusts are the best matches for that weapon," said Penny. "Once I am satisfied with my choice of weapon, I will consider upgrading it for other Dust."

"That's an approach," said Professor Mesquite. "Well, I can see one long term problem right there. Any firearm, even protected by your Aura, will wear out its barrel eventually. Thing is, you're integrating your barrel into the sword. It's not a separate piece, it's all one. That means you can't just replace the barrel—you'll have to reforge the whole blade.

"That's the trouble with you kids," he said with a crooked smile. "You never think about the back end. A fancy weapon is all well and good, but what use is it if you can't maintain the darn thing?"

Penny was sure she'd be on to another version of Elektra before that happened, but thinking longer-term was a good habit to develop. "I will keep that in mind," she said gratefully.

"Alright, then. Let's just check your accounts to make sure you've got plenty of requisition left. You know how it is, you can only get so much stuff each semester on Beacon's tab. And you had a big draw right at the get-go, starting out from scratch like you did."

The words "from scratch" drew Blake's curious eye, but Professor Mesquite was looking away and tapping at a screen of his own. Another tap, another, and then his eyes opened wide. "Oh," he said.

"Do I have enough?" Penny asked.

"Y'all have plenty," said Professor Mesquite, checking the numbers again. He looked askance at her. "You sure you didn't bring funds of your own?"

"I'm sure," said Penny. Money, as a concept, had required an explanation to her from Professor Goodwitch. There hadn't been any with her in the shipping container that had delivered her to Beacon.

Which meant, if Professor Mesquite was correct, that someone was taking lavish care of her. That was… mildly embarrassing.

"Hm," said Professor Mesquite. After a moment, he shrugged. "Well, you're all set. Go get started, and lemme know if you have any issues."

"Yes, sir," said Penny.

"Meantime, me an' Miss Belladonna will get down to brass tacks."

Penny was sure that brass would not be involved, and equally sure that wasn't the point. Oh, people.

The clang of weapons filled the hall. Combat practice this week was devoted to smaller-scale exercises and lower-level sparring rather than formal duels. That was why Penny, mindful of the class's syllabus, had chosen that weekend to reforge Elektra. She'd be able to try it out in a friendlier setting before putting it to a real test.

"Alright, Penny!" said Yang. "You and me today, huh?"

"It appears so," said Penny as cheerfully as ever. "I'm sure you'll give me great feedback on my new weapon."

"Don't think this gets you out of us having a real throw-down," said Yang. "I still want to go all-out with you some time."

"The feeling is mutual," said Penny. "But that doesn't mean you should go easy on me now."

"I kinda have to go easy," said Yang. "The rules of this exercise say no ranged attacks, melee only."

"You rely on recoil from your gauntlets for maneuverability," said Penny with concern. "Are you really losing all that?"

"Not quite, I've got blank ammo loaded so I can still push myself around. It just means neither of us can attack each other outside of melee, and I lose a little striking power.

"Still," Yang said with a smirk, "that doesn't mean I won't give you my best!"

"Sensational," said Penny. "Thank you, Yang."

"Don't mention it. So, show me the goods."

"Of course. Presenting… Elektra 2.0!"

Penny flicked her arms forward and up while disengaging the matching stows on both forearms. Into each hand flew the hilt of a sword, and with rapid ka-chunk sounds the two swords extended to full size. They vaguely resembled what her claymore would have looked like split in half, though the overall mass of the two swords was much greater than that of the single claymore. The swords' edges didn't come together to a single point. Instead, both edges ended in a point of their own with a gap between them. The middle of the blades had, not a recessed fuller, but a rounded bulge, as that was the barrel of the coaxial rifle. The bullets would be fired from between the points of the sword.

Built into the guard of each sword was Penny's emblem, which resembled the symbol for electronics to power on. Penny thought it might be a bit of a tell, but she couldn't think of any emblem that fit her better, so it stayed.

Penny tapped the flats of the swords together. "That is a joke," she said confidently. "It is Elektra 2.0 because now there are two swords!"

(Nearby, Weiss was struck by a wave of cold and dread. It was a premonition of doom. No, she thought. Surely there can't be two of them.)

"More formally," Penny continued, "they are Paired Double-Breadth Dust-Amplified Long Swords with Integral Coaxial Rifles!"

"Nice," said Yang with a thumbs-up. It made Penny feel warm. "Kudos on the name, and they sure look awesome. But now…" Yang settled into a fighting stance and her gauntlets unfolded from their bracelet form, "…let's see what they're really made of."

"Here I come," said Penny.

As Professor Goodwitch deactivated the sprinkler system, she shot a scathing look at Yang and Penny. "This practice room isn't rated for full-power duels," she said tersely. "That's why this exercise was supposed to be a low-level spar."

"We were trying to keep it low-level," said Yang. "Neither of us were using ranged options, no semblances, just basic melee fighting."

"Then how did this…" Professor Goodwitch gestured at the wreckage (and soaked students) all around them. "…happen?"

"Well, we started off slow, but as we kept sparring we got a little wound up, and then… Penny launched me."

Professor Goodwitch stared.

"Pretty hard."

The staring intensified.

"Yang makes a very good projectile," Penny said generously.

Professor Goodwitch buried her face in her hand.

"A concert?"

"That's right," said Yang. "It's happening at the auditorium in downtown Vale next weekend."

Weiss' suspicious eyes tracked over to the poster above Yang's bed. "This isn't one of those boy bands that's popular because its members are attractive rather than for its musical talents, right?"

"It's not the Achieve Men, no," said Yang. "I personally think that being cute does up the appeal of the music by about 10%, but that's not the selling point here."

Penny made a mental note that the "Achieve Men" were 'cute', at least according to Yang. Having a working definition for 'cute' could only help when their Friendship Things progressed to 'talking about cute boys', but Penny still felt like the concept was nebulous at best.

"That opinion is highly suspect," said Weiss. "I don't think 'cuteness' has anything to do with musical ability."

"You sang," said Blake with dry amusement.

"Yeah," piled on Yang, "are you saying you don't think your being cute had anything to do with your sales?"

The sounds that came out of Weiss' mouth did not resemble speech.

Yang looked back at Blake. "Wait, Weiss had a singing career? I don't remember ever seeing her music up for sale."

"It had a limited release in Atlas only," said Blake. "Apparently, daddy dearest only paid for marketing in Atlas proper."

Weiss appeared to complete her system reset. "My musical career wasn't about sales," said Weiss, her face and voice becoming tight. "It was a social play for the upper strata of Atlas society. It wasn't really for profit and definitely not for the music itself." She frowned. "It wasn't even for me."

"Well," said Yang, "looks like I'm adding yet another entry to my catalogue of Why Weiss' Dad Sucks, to go with half of your personal habits and chapters 22 to 26 of our modern history book."

"It's impossible for me to defend my father," said Weiss as her frown deepened, "but can we tone it down a little? He is still my father, he has power over me, and if we go to this concert it'll be his money we use for it. That was your eventual plan, wasn't it?"

"You're skipping a few steps," said Yang, "I was planning to butter you up a bit more first, but that was the idea, yeah."

"You are so predictable."

"Weren't you saying just yesterday that guessing what I'd do next was like trying to model Brownian motion?"

"About some things you're predictable," Weiss amended.

Grinning, Yang stage-whispered at Blake, "I don't even know what Brownian motion is." Blake permitted herself a small smile, which Tactical noted was the third this week—a new record.

Penny's higher consciousness, though, was hung up on an earlier point. "You can sing?" she asked Weiss.

"I can sing professionally well, yes," said Weiss.

"I have never heard you sing," said Penny.

"That's by choice," said Weiss. "I was made to sing whether I liked it or not, just based on what my father wanted. It wasn't for me at all, it was for him. That sucked a lot of the joy out of it. I don't enjoy singing anymore."

A thousand possible queries and branch plans went invalid all at once. "Oh," said Penny in a deflated voice. "I would have liked to hear you sing. I think it would have been delightful. But I don't want to ask you to do something you don't want to do."

Quiet descended on the room, and Weiss squirmed in place. "Will you stop making that face?" she demanded of Penny.

"What face?" said Penny with a hiccup while continuing to feed Emotion Signifying resources.

"Ugh," said Weiss, and she crossed her arms and turned away. "I'll think about it. In the meantime, do we really want to go to this concert?"

"Are you afraid they'll sound better than you?" said Yang.

"Hardly," sniffed Weiss, "I'm afraid they'll be so far beneath my standards it'll be a waste of my time."

"If we go together, it can be a Friendship Thing," said Yang with a glance at Penny.

Penny's processors went from division on the subject to unanimous agreement in favor. "That sounds excellent," she said.

Yang smirked. "Like shooting fish in a barrel."

"That's just a waste of good fish," said Blake.

"What about you, Blakey? Don't you want to come with?"

"No, but I'll go if the team wants to."

"It doesn't fit in our calendar," said Weiss, and she shifted her scroll from screen mode to projector so the others could see, too.

What appeared was an intensely organized and colorful calendar filled with a dizzying variety of activities across all the spheres of Team BXPS' life. Penny and Weiss, as the most organized members of the team and the ones most fond of making schedules, had driven its development. It was full of scheduled study sessions and team activities of one kind or another. One evening a week was set aside for Movie Night with Team JNPR, while Yang had ensured that there were regularly scheduled workout sessions to keep everyone in shape.

Penny, who didn't need to exercise, hadn't thought to put those in, and when Yang had made the suggestion Penny had no counterargument that would seem innocent.

Yang had also reserved half an hour each week to "call dad" and refused all further questions on the topic.

Blake's contribution had been to ensure that there were stretches of time with no other obligations, periods where nothing was scheduled to allow them to get away from each other. "I know I'm supposed to be leading you," she'd said, "but there's only so many hours a day I can stand being in the middle of all this. We could all use some alone time."

Which meant that even their free time was scheduled. Between that and Penny's ironclad grip on their sleep schedule, Penny had to admit that Weiss had a point: their schedule had no real openings for the next two months.

"We shouldn't stick to a schedule just because it's a schedule," said Yang.

"What's the point of a schedule if you don't stick to it?" Weiss countered.

"It's a point of departure," said Blake, seeming to surprise even herself. "Have you ever heard the phrase, "no plan survives contact with the enemy"?"

"I have," said Weiss, "but the reason for that idiom is "the enemy always gets a vote". Our schedule doesn't have an enemy, unless you count Yang."

"Perhaps not the enemy," Penny said, "but the unexpected. When we made the schedule, we didn't know there would be a concert, so we were planning with insufficient information. We couldn't compare the concert to the other things in our schedule to make informed tradeoffs."

"You two can get carried away a bit with over-planning," said Yang. "I half-expected you to schedule our bathroom breaks."

"I almost did," said Weiss. "You would've gone last, by the way."

"Hysterical."

Penny would rather not dwell on bathroom usage, given her non-bathroom-user status. "Maybe we should build some uncertainty into our schedule in the future to absorb the unexpected. For now…"

She walked to the holo of the schedule and started moving things around. "If we all go together, then it will count as a team building activity. In that case, I'd be willing to give up this block of team activity time, which means we can move this study session and that block of personal time and then that workout session slides here..."

She stopped narrating when she got to where her hands were moving faster than she could speak. Activities fell into new slots; blocks slid neatly into place like puzzle pieces. After another ten seconds, Penny stepped back and put her hands on her hips to admire her work. "It looks like we can fit the concert into our schedule after all," she said proudly.

There was a long enough silence for Penny to notice, and then Yang and Blake started clapping. "Bravo, bravo!" said Yang.

Weiss sighed in defeat. "Fine. But if there is no musicality to be found here, I'm taking it out of your hide, Yang Xiao Long."

"Don't threaten me with a good time," Yang said.

Weiss returned to sputtering. Penny sincerely hoped Weiss upgraded her Thesaurus function soon.

There were more people than Penny had ever seen in one place. Beacon's ballroom had nothing on this. There had to be thousands of people cramming themselves into the arena.

The concept of personal space, Penny was discovering, was mutable. Most people were made uncomfortable when Penny went in for hugs. People preferred her to stay at arm's length. Blake's personal space boundary seemed to extend two body lengths in all directions, at least in the evening. Here, in contrast, personal space was restricted to the skeleton level.

Penny's touch receptors could send a lot of signals just because there were so many of them, and they were screaming at her now about the many people pressed in on her from all directions. Her other senses weren't doing much better. All around was cacophony from people having to shout to make themselves heard, and that choice increased the general din that much more—a positive feedback loop constrained only by the vocal capacity of the human throat. Sight was overwhelmed trying to take in all the many people as well as the stage, the speaker setup, and the various contraptions and constructs on, above, and around the stage, whose purposes were a complete mystery.

Tactical complained that it needed at least three times as many system resources as Penny was giving it to process all this data to her usual satisfaction. Seeing as that resource request came to twice as many processor cycles as Penny possessed, she had to disregard it.

"Some place, huh?" screamed Yang from directly next to Penny.

Weiss tried to respond, but her words couldn't be heard above the background noise.

Blake yelled, "I did not think this through," while holding her hands over her human ears; Penny realized belatedly that someone with four ears would be extra susceptible to clamor. Oops.

At least they wouldn't have to endure this for more than seven minutes, as that was how long there was until the official start time of the concert. And at that, they'd arrived thirty minutes early. Penny was happy that she'd yielded to Yang's experience on this matter. If they'd followed Penny's suggestion and arrived only ten minutes early, they'd still be outside trying to push their way in, tickets or no tickets.

It all seemed very inefficient. Penny was sure there were better ways to do these things, but speed did not seem to be a priority for the event organizers any more than comfort. Volume seemed to be all that mattered.

Volume... Aha! Volume as in sound, and volume as in dimensions! Penny had thought of a joke! Yang would be so proud of her!

When she turned to share this realization with Yang, however, she realized that this amount of noise would defeat all subtle wordplay. She might as well recite a limerick in a hurricane. She saved the joke and put a note in her logs to share it under other circumstances.

Seven minutes turned out to be a very long time.

Despite Team BXPS being shoulder-to-shoulder (or closer), and despite their already being pressed up against people both ahead and behind, the arena continued to fill. It must have; it was the only explanation for how their team kept getting pushed further forward and closer together.

Penny knew the ideal gas law, and its terms were very much coming into play. (Oh, volume was a term in that equation, too—double joke!) It was getting hotter and hotter around Penny from all the people squeezing in. Glances around showed that Weiss and Blake were doing very poorly with this, too.

Tactical was sending out ever more alarms. The press of people meant she would struggle to defend herself in a crisis and the sensory overload would make it difficult to detect an attack in the first place. Penny had no choice but to suspend most of Tactical's warnings and reallocate its cycles elsewhere. There was nothing she could do to resolve those alarms, so the only thing she could do was stop generating them.

Of the team, only Yang seemed to be taking all of this in stride, though whether she was used to this or just didn't mind it was unclear. Penny had tried to prepare herself for concert conditions, she'd even gotten herself a music note face tattoo to complete the theme, but she'd far undershot.

The main overhead lights went out. People started to scream. To Penny's surprise, these weren't screams of fear like she might have expected from people who'd just lost sensory inputs. These were screams of excitement.

"Goooood evening Vale Cityyyyyy!"

The voice boomed from so many directions at once it seemed like a tidal wave had buried Penny in sound. As the voice drew out the last syllable, a roar of excitement grew from the crowd. It was inarticulate and Penny had no idea what it was supposed to communicate beyond the fact of excitement, and yet, even with Thesaurus baffled, Penny found her own voice joining the crowd's. Nor was she the only one; Yang released a bellow Penny would have expected from an Ursa Major.

"You," came the voice again, "you lucky few… are part of something outstanding and righteous. Gauntlet has come to grace your city. Today is our first stop in Sanus… as part of Gauntlet's World Domination Tour!"

Analysis objected that a band could not conquer the world. Penny's other subroutines told Analysis to shut up.

"After our performance tonight, we'll be hitting the road to lay waste to every major city on three continents, only to return here five months from today to finish the job. And that means there's only one question left to ask and answer."

The crowd grew quieter than it had ever been. It was still more noise than Penny had ever encountered before tonight, but it was the quietest she'd experienced in the arena. It was a different kind of silence from, say, the library. That was the silence of enforced calm and/or lack of stimulation. This silence was packed full of energy. It was the quiet of a bomb at rest.

"Are you ready to rock?!"

The bomb went off.

"I said, Are you ready to rooooock!"

The bomb reconstituted itself and went off again even larger and more explosively than before as Thesaurus lost all ability to construct metaphor.

"Then you'd better put on your big girl dresses, because we are going to melt. Your. Boooooones!"

Higher consciousness put on mute every subroutine that raised any objection to this proposal. There was a new and even more frenzied eruption of sound from the crowd, and it seemed to come as much from within Penny as from without. She'd thought the excitement couldn't grow any more. She'd been wrong.

And then the music started.

Notes near the bottom of the range humans could register, along with banging sounds. The low sounds matched the banging, its tones changing in time with each new… strike…

Penny realized in something of a panic that she had no vocabulary with which to describe music, possibly the first time she'd found herself so disarmed on subjects other than emotions and humor.

Then a new instrument joined in and all thoughts and worries burst like fireworks.

If Penny lacked the capacity to analyze what she was hearing, then all she could do was experience the sensations of it. She let go of her last intellectual anchors and felt something new and different overcome her, something that resonated with the sound that burst from the speakers.

Whatever it meant 'to rock', Penny was ready for it.

One song after another. The frenzy never subsided, it only shifted gears up or down. There was artificial fog. There were strobing lights. There were flamethrowers.

Penny liked the flamethrowers.

More than anything else, there was the music, emotion communicated from the band to Penny with no silicon or electronics in the way, music she felt in her Aura as much as in her body. Maybe that was due to the sheer volume, which was at levels that could cause hearing damage with prolonged exposure, but it wasn't all that.

It was like Aura resonance, she thought. Imbuing a weapon with a warrior's Aura caused that weapon to respond more easily to the warrior's command. This music penetrated her, enticed her into matching its frequencies, and she couldn't help but entwine with it.

She was drawn to the source like current to a conductor. Maybe this was what hunger felt like to meat people: for all that the music was affecting her, she needed more. She pressed further forward whenever the chance arose. Solid and implacable as she was, she could edge between and through people with ease, even people as drunk on the music as her.

Until, eventually, she somehow found herself near the front of the crowd. She was so close she could see the sweat streaming down the performers on-stage. So close she thought her Aura would flicker under the force of the sound coming from above and before her.

It was glorious.

As the band moved to its craziest song yet, one of the band members moved forward, bent at the waist, and started whipping their head around. Their long hair thrashed in circles.

It was inspiring. Penny… Penny could do that, too, couldn't she?

She angled past another person until she was standing at a chain (which wouldn't have stopped her if she didn't want it to), observed the person swinging their head another few seconds before they rose, and imitated what she'd seen.

Her hair wasn't long enough to get the full effect, but wow, did it work! How wild!

When she rose again after a few more seconds, it was to adulation all around, people cheering their approval at her and patting her shoulders and back. Penny was smiling so hard she briefly thought her pseudo-muscles might stick there—which wouldn't be the worst thing ever, really.

As the song continued, another member of the band took the place of the first and started the same thrashing motions. Penny never hesitated. She watched how long the musician did it, timed it, and (when he stopped) imitated him in every way.

The roaring grew louder than ever.

Penny wondered if she'd ever had more fun.

As fun as the concert had been—and the ringing in Yang's ears and the rawness of her throat were both testaments to how much fun she'd had—there was more than a little anxiety now.

Because Yang had lost her team.

She wasn't even sure when it'd happened. She just remembered looking around and not seeing Blake or Weiss, and then later losing sight of Penny. Great. She'd convinced everyone to go out and then let them get into trouble. What the hell was wrong with her?

Yes, she admitted to her brain's objections, her teammates were all Huntresses-in-training. They could all take care of themselves. They were all, frankly, kind of terrifying in their own rights.

Knowing all of this was doing little to slow the pounding of Yang's heart or make her nerves feel less like constricting wires.

Because, as scary as her teammates were on the battlefield, they were out of their elements here. Weiss had probably never been to a concert where she wasn't the star and/or cocooned in layers of security. Penny had zero nose for danger and would probably follow anyone who smiled broadly enough at her. As for Blake, while she was easily the most street-smart of the bunch, Yang got the impression that was from necessity, what with her being a Faunus in a Kingdom with enormous variance for tolerating Faunus.

The longer Yang went without seeing them, the quicker her breaths came and the tighter the wires squeezed. She had to be there, she had to keep an eye on them, she had to make sure nothing bad happened to them.

She couldn't fail again. She couldn't fail them.

She furiously dashed off messages to all three of them on her scroll, reminding them of their planned meeting place at the bus stop outside the arena. To her relief, she got three positive replies in short order, first from Penny, then Weiss, then Blake. Good. At least they were all alive to reply.

Or, her anxiety blared in her skull, they'd been attacked and the attackers had taken over their scrolls. Blake's scroll was old and outdated and probably a few generations of security updates behind. Weiss had been so privileged for so long she probably never learned proper cyber hygiene, probably had people taking care of that for her until now. Penny? Penny was definitely an "I set my password to 'Password'" kind of girl.

So Yang took station by the bus stop with her hands in her pockets to hide how badly she was shaking. Because anything could have happened to Yang's team while her back was turned.

Where could they be, where could they be, how had she lost them…

Her hand automatically found the sash on her right arm, and that grounded her. This isn't like then, she thought to herself. This isn't a helpless four-year-old in her bed. These are grown-ass women. They can take care of themselves.

The image of Penny's guileless, always-trusting face appeared in her mind's eye. She whimpered as her anxiety redoubled.

People just kept on streaming out of the arena, and she kept not seeing the people she was waiting for. This was bad, she couldn't lose them, too! Where could they be?!

There! There was no mistaking that hair. The fist squeezing Yang's heart unclenched some.

"Weiss!" called Yang with a wave. "Over here!"

The off-center ponytail—the only part of Weiss visible in this crowd even with those ridiculous heels she wore—jerked in Yang's direction. As it approached, Yang noticed a black bow bobbing next to it. Sure enough, Weiss and Blake emerged from the crowd and broke into the open by the bus stop.

Yang sighed in relief. "I was worried about you two," she said. "I looked around and you were gone!"

"I'm sorry," said Blake, and she looked down.

Yang couldn't stop herself speaking as her tension discharged some. "And I thought, maybe you just went to the bathroom, but then it was three songs later, and I knew that couldn't be it. Where did you run off to?"

Weiss' head whipped towards Blake with a demanding expression. "Yes, that's a great question," she said with a tongue sharp enough to perform surgery. "Where did we run off to?"

Blake met no one's eyes and her shoulders hunched in and down. "I saw someone I recognized," she said in the lowest voice that was still audible, "and they wanted to talk to me."

"Who, exactly?" Weiss said without relent.

Blake hunched some more. "An acquaintance."

"It's good to have acquaintances and catch up with them, isn't it?"

Yang wanted to laugh and cry both, because Penny had arrived. "I'm so glad to see you," said Yang, pulling Penny into a hug; Penny resisted for a moment, seemed too heavy to pull in, but then returned the hug with gusto. "I didn't know what'd happened to you."

"I got carried away," said Penny with very shallow regret. She looked no worse for the wear and wore a smile so broad Yang thought her cheeks would break. "That was the most fun I've ever had, ever!"

A bus pulled up to their stop. This had been their plan all along; the bus was the most convenient way to get back to the airship dock that would shuttle them to Beacon. As they boarded, the last pangs of anxiety in Yang's chest finally subsided.

Penny and Yang sat next to each other; Weiss and Blake sat on either side of the pair, as far from each other as possible, and neither looked in a mood to talk. Yang took a note of that, but didn't mind, because now she could follow up with Penny. "Where did you go?" she asked.

"I was so excited I had to get as close as I could, so I pressed on forward until I was at the very front." Penny leaned in like she was sharing a secret. "I got to mosh."

"Wow," said Yang, genuinely impressed.

"And when I saw members of the band twirling their heads, I imitated them, and that was fun, too!"

"You were head-banging?"

"Oh, so that's what it's called." Penny cupped her chin thoughtfully. "I'm not quite sure why it was so much fun, though. Or why people would stop if it was."

"They'd get dizzy," said Yang. "You want to stir the brain a little bit, not concuss it."

"Oh. Oh!" said Penny, snapping her fingers in realization. "By shaking the head so much, you disrupt the brain's stability enough to induce an altered mental state! It's like alcohol."

Yang blinked in surprise. "You know, I've never heard someone describe it like that, but I think you're on to something."

"The other moshers were very impressed with my head-banging," Penny said. "And then a member of the band jumped into the crowd!"

"Don't tell me: the part where he was punted back up on the stage was when he got to you, wasn't it?"

Penny gasped. "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess." Yang mimed wiping her eye. "Look at you! My Penny's all grown up!"

"I… thought I already was?"

Yang chuckled. "Not bad for your first concert, I'd say."

"Indeed! That was a delight! We must go to another one as soon as we can!"

"Ix-nay," said Blake.

"Fat chance," said Weiss.

"Don't worry about them," Yang said to Penny. "You had fun, and that's what matters. Who knew you were such a metalhead?"

Penny's smile became fixed as she froze in place.

"It's the term for someone who likes heavy metal," said Yang. "Heavy metal, metalhead… you get it?"

After another second, Penny nodded vigorously. "Oh! I understand now! Yes. I suppose I am a metalhead in the fan-of-music sense."

It was so oddly phrased that Yang was almost compelled to ask what other 'sense' Penny could have meant. Then again, the vibes were good that night, and the team had enough drama on the stove with whatever had happened with Blake and Weiss. What good would come of digging up more?

None. None at all. Nah, let this be. "I'm glad we went," said Yang. "That kicked some serious butt."

"Indeed," said Penny.

They allowed quiet to descend on them as the bus worked its way through the city towards their stop. It helped the ringing in Yang's ears finally start to wind down.

They were almost to the airship dock when Penny destroyed the silence. "Oh, that reminds me! I thought of a joke!"

Penny turned to Yang, looked enormously pleased with herself, and belted out, "Volume!"

Next time: Upkeep