As the weeks ticked by towards the end of the semester, some of Team BXPS' activities grew more intense. Professor Goodwitch prodded all her students towards developing team attacks. Ideas for these did not come easily to Blake or to Yang; they came almost too easily to Penny, who could trivially model bodies in motion and generate ideas for how those bodies could interact. Unfortunately, many of those models were unrealistic to expect people to perform in battle.
As entertaining as it was to simulate Penny swinging a chain made of Weiss holding onto Blake's ankles holding on to Yang's ankles holding on to Penny's hands, the benefits of this maneuver were dubious, and it was unlikely any serious foe would give them time to arrange it.
The team being on academic probation didn't impact their school behavior very much, except for Weiss'. Weiss' free periods were now 100% devoted to studying and note-taking, whereas before this had only been 53% of her free periods. This made little sense to Penny, since Weiss was at or near the top in every class, but any time she asked about this Weiss responded testily but vaguely about needing to approach perfection.
Being restricted to campus was a bigger blow, especially as the team's various supplies ran out. Yang achieved a partial solution by funneling money to Team JNPR. Within hours Nora stormed into Team BXPS' dorm with armfuls of contraband: conditioner (for Yang), books in opaque bags (for Blake), and nail polish (for Penny) BXPS could not have gotten on their own. It was almost enough to change Penny's mind about the wisdom of having Nora close by. Almost.
BXPS' investigation of the White Fang hit a dead end for lack of information. The team submitted their two reports and waited for a response from the Emerald Tower. None came, a fact that made all of them, but especially Blake, increasingly worried as time went on.
It didn't help when they saw news reports that Roman Torchwick was back in action and more audacious than ever. He'd stolen back fully half of the Dust confiscated from the warehouse bust. After a short hiatus, Dust robberies began again, with as much frequency and force as ever. These new robberies began to strain the market and Team BXPS' nerves alike.
The Emerald Tower had nothing to say about that, either.
Complicating everything was the presence of Just Sun, who was seriously damaging Penny's understanding of personal and team boundaries. He didn't seem pushy to Penny, at least not in the way Weiss liked to use the word; he backed off instantly if anyone told him to or suggested he was unwelcome. This didn't happen often. More commonly, Just Sun would join BXPS or JNPR at a table or classroom with a smile so disarming no one could complain about his presence. Blake conspicuously never complained about it.
Penny's biggest disappointment came when she visited the Forge for an after-hours session with Professor Mesquite.
"You wanna install what now?" said the Professor.
"A particle beam," said Penny, double checking with Vocal to ensure she had not misspoken. No, her output had been perfectly correct. The fault was on the receiving end.
"First of all," said Professor Mesquite, "Atlas ain't exactly putting the specs for those in the public domain, you know?"
"But we need the best weapons available to fight the most dangerous enemies out there," said Penny stubbornly. The words, she recognized, had come from the mystery subroutine, but this one time she'd allow it because she happened to agree.
"Maybe, but Atlas never forgot about losing the Great War. They share, sure, but they keep enough goodies in their back pocket that no other Kingdom can seriously threaten 'em. Like with the CCT. Atlas trained people in the other Kingdoms how to use an' operate the CCT, but if something breaks, only Atlas know-how can fix 'em."
"The CCT system is Atlas' great gift to Remnant," the mystery subroutine insisted.
"Some gift," said the Professor as he crossed his arms. "A gift that just so happens to give Atlas an excuse for its grunts to be in every Kingdom."
Penny knew she was getting nowhere with this conversation, and it was an argument she'd never meant to have in the first place. She had to get away from it. "What's the second problem?" she asked.
"Well," said Professor Mesquite, "even if I got the schematics for a battleship-class P-beam, we couldn't stick it on your sword. That is your goal, I'm guessin'."
"Yes, sir."
"We can't make 'em that small," said Mesquite. "Maybe you could chop one down enough to fit on a tank, but gettin' it down to sword-size? Good luck with that."
"I know it's possible because I've seen it," said Penny reasonably.
"If you say so," said Professor Mesquite. "Maybe there's some Atlas super-genius out there who can figure it out. But you can be darn sure they won't share that info with the rest of us."
"I see," said Penny. She stepped back and curtsied. "I'm sorry to have wasted your time."
"It's not a waste," said Professor Mesquite. "Not if you learned something."
Penny agreed. She had learned something.
Specifically, she'd learned that Ruby was a super-genius.
"… So then you were like, wham! And he was like, Oh no, we can't stop her, and you were like, You think that was rough, wait 'til you see what I do to your buddy, and the buddy was like, What are you gonna do to me? And then you were like, This! Slam! Ouch!"
Penny took issue with many of Just Sun's choices for sound effects and dialogue in recreating her recent sparring match, but he was keeping, as Yang might say, the spirit of the thing, so she let it slide.
"You guys are so awesome!" said Just Sun. "When my team comes in, we're gonna have to do a crash training course to make sure we're up to snuff."
"Where is your team?" asked Penny as BXPS, JNPR, and Just Sun left Professor Goodwitch's class.
"Still at Haven," said Just Sun. "They'll be traveling here over the semester break. Neptune'll be here at the start of the semester, and the rest should be rolling in just before the tournament."
"No wonder Professor Goodwitch was miffed," said Weiss. "You're incredibly early."
"Why are you so early?" said Blake, but then, unprompted, she looked away and said hastily, "Not that I'm complaining."
"It all started weeks ago," said Just Sun. "I was talking to my team about the public transportation system in Vacuo."
"There isn't any public transportation in Vacuo," said Weiss.
"There's not a public transportation company, sure," said Just Sun. "But any vehicle can be public transportation if you can get on board without getting caught. It's a great system!"
"Remind me never to go there," said Weiss.
"Yeah, that's probably for the best, you'd just get lynched. Anyway," Just Sun rolled on with no concern for the shock he'd just inflicted on Weiss, "if you do get caught, then the owner of the vehicle is totally in their rights to toss you off wherever they happen to be, but that's just part of the fun. So as I was explaining all this, Sage said, There's no way that's how it works, and I said, Sure it is, I bet I could sneak onto any vehicle in Mistral and get wherever I wanted. So Sage said, Prove it, I dare you to hitchhike all the way to Beacon, and if you don't get there or you pay for a single ticket along the way, then Scarlet gets to be team leader. And I said, You're on!
"So, long story short, here I am!"
"You smuggled yourself from Mistral to Beacon over a dare?" said Yang.
"It's not like it was hard," said Just Sun, holding the lunchroom door for them as they entered the cafeteria. "I could have walked down to the train station easy, but I rode on the roof of a cab just to get in the swing of things. I took the train down to the port at Sirocco, then snuck aboard a cargo ship headed for Vale. Super easy."
"I believe you," said Penny. After all, she and Turchina had been smuggled into Vale in a whole shipping container. If a shipping container could be loaded and offloaded from a cargo ship without raising a fuss, how much easier would it be for one person?
Defeating the ship's inventory software would be harder, though, since the shipping container would have needed ship's company to move it, whereas a stowaway could just walk/jump/swim to freedom. Penny was 72% sure that she'd played no role in erasing the record of her container's transit, which meant that someone else had done it instead. Someone relatively skilled in such things.
Seeing as Penny didn't know how many people possessed that level of skill, this narrowed things down very little.
"Even if the ship was too slow for my taste," Just Sun was continuing. "I ran out of fruit halfway through!"
"Ha, luxury accommodations," said Nora. "Ren and I made three hops along the southeast Anima coast hiding in different fishing boats."
"Huh," said Just Sun. "Don't those have, like, no free space on board?"
"There's plenty of space if you can fool the crew into thinking you're a fish," said Nora.
Subroutine after subroutine checked in with the same response: no content.
"Hey," said Just Sun to Nora, "you're all competing in Vytal, aren't you?"
"You bet!" said Nora.
"We held a team vote, and it came out in favor," said Jaune. "I knew Pyrrha had done lots of tournaments before, so I didn't want to just force her into another one."
"It turns out you can't keep her away!" said Nora, looping an arm around Pyrrha's waist and tugging her close with a startled sound. "She's all nice and polite out here, but she's also a hardened competitor who thirsts to dominate and crush all opposition beneath her very stylish heels!"
Penny couldn't recall any words along those lines coming out of Pyrrha's mouth, but Pyrrha also wasn't denying them now.
"Awesome," said Just Sun. He turned his head to look at BXPS. "What about you guys? From what I've seen, you four could hang with the best of them!"
"Obviously," said Weiss.
"You really think so?" said Blake.
"Sure," said Just Sun. "And either way, what've you got to lose by trying? Even if you wash out, you still get to have a great time mixing with the other students, show off your skills, and take home lessons for the next tournament in two years. Even your worst case is pretty sweet."
Penny was impressed. Just Sun did not strike her as the type of person to think too far ahead, but even he could see things on a timescale of years. Penny wondered how old she would have to get before she could think like that.
It wasn't like she could ask anyone. She had no peers with similar minds, and no access to her creators, who might be able to give her perspective-
Wait.
Her creators!
"I would like to compete very much," Penny said, the words bursting from her in her excitement. That drew curiosity from the others at the table.
The least curious, somehow, was Just Sun, who was matching her energy instead. "That's what I'm talking about!"
"Didn't see this coming," said Yang with a grin that made Weiss cringe in anticipation. "I'd give you a... Penny for your thoughts."
The ensuing groans did not derail Penny. "You know I haven't been able to find or identify my father. Well, the Vytal Tournament is broadcast across Remnant. If I compete, that level of visibility might lead him to me, or vice versa."
"Are we sure that would be a good thing?" said Weiss, but given what Weiss thought of her own father, Penny thought her partner might be projecting.
"Either way, at least I would know. I find that preferable to my current condition of anxious ignorance."
Oh! Even more importantly—Ruby might see Penny performing at Vytal. Penny hadn't heard from Ruby and was growing increasingly apprehensive about it. If Ruby had been in Vale to scout for a future mission, it'd make sense for her to return before that scouting report was out of date. Didn't that imply she'd be back soon?
Yet Penny didn't have the capability to ask these questions of Ruby directly. She'd have to use indirect methods. And Vytal was the broadest-scope indirect method on Remnant.
"You know," said Blake thoughtfully, "there might be something to that."
Even as Analysis simulated Ruby watching Penny perform and clapping in delight, Penny redirected resources to Tactical to focus on the present. "Would you please elaborate?" said Penny.
"Not yet," said Blake. "I need to think on this one a little more." As she spoke, though, she glanced several times at Just Sun.
Penny thought she understood: Blake was trying to be sneaky. Whether her thoughts were complete or not, she couldn't say more in front of Just Sun. Penny took a note to revisit this topic when they had more privacy.
"Well, you'd better make your decision quick," said Just Sun. "All the guest schools had to lock in their rosters a couple of weeks ago, that's how I knew I'd be coming. Beacon can get away with waiting 'til the last minute because they're the hosts, but I've gotta think your deadline is coming up, like, now."
"I'll talk to Professor Goodwitch," said Blake, and she looked entirely too pleased with herself as she did.
"Cool," said Just Sun. "Hey, did you hear there's a new Spruce Willis movie coming out?"
"Hell yeah," said Yang.
"My, how your mind flits about," said Penny.
"Airhead recognizes airhead," Weiss said under her breath.
Penny didn't see how that description could possibly be accurate. Her head had very little space for air, what with air being ineffective for heat transfer unless it was moving, and as she understood meat person anatomy, their skulls were full of cerebrospinal fluid with no room for air at all.
Weiss must have been using idiom. An element of speech that gave Penny no end of trouble, but that she treasured nonetheless.
Kind of like people.
Lava sloshed in Adam Taurus' chest.
Anger was never far away for Adam. Things that made him angry were everywhere. He saw them whenever he looked at a city. He saw them whenever he looked through this White Fang camp and saw what his people had been driven to. He saw them whenever he looked in a mirror.
Anger might have been his baseline emotional state. And yet there were things that could drive him higher, that could escalate his anger into something volcanic. Treason was atop that list.
"You're sure?" he demanded of his underling. There was no throne in this White Fang base camp the way there was at the headquarters of the movement, which was a tactical decision. Thrones weren't easy to move in a pinch. They were great for theatrics, though, and this sort of moment demanded theatrics.
He'd have a throne someday, he hoped. Someday soon, if his plans came to fruition.
"Our contact swears it's so, Leader Taurus," the White Fang soldier said from a kneeling posture. "She's sympathetic to our cause, which is why we had her at the warehouse, but she hasn't yet put on the mask. But I think that's why she didn't identify the target immediately. Everyone in the Vale Branch knows who we're looking for."
The lava bubbled. "So it was Blake Belladonna who led the attack on our warehouse," Adam said.
"We believe so, Leader Taurus."
The words were said confidently. Adam knew better than to shoot messengers, and his messengers had taken this to heart. It was one reason they were unafraid to report news, even bad news, and that gave him advantages.
After all, why should he vent his anger on a messenger when there were others who so richly deserved that anger?
"Very well," said Adam. "Renew the order to all points to watch for Blake and report on her movements. When the time comes, I'll deal with the traitor myself."
"Yes, Leader Taurus."
Adam turned away, nursing a hot and scalding feeling in his chest as he reentered his tent.
Speaking of things that made him furious just from seeing them…
"Even with what I've recovered from the cops that your pets lost, we'll still need to move the schedule three weeks to the right."
"Unacceptable. This schedule is tied to specific events. It can't change."
Adam barely contained a sneer at the bickering of his so-called allies. Roman Torchwick was the most obnoxious person Adam had ever met in person, an empty suit strutting along as if the price tag on his clothes meant everything. Roman didn't hate the Faunus the way other humans who used those slurs did; the man simply had no respect for anyone or anything, so saying those words appealed to his flimsy sense of humor. The only thing Roman truly hated was pineapple on pizza; the only thing that motivated him was money. Men like him were ten-for-the-lien.
If it was up to Adam, he'd gut the man and leave him in the forest for the grimm. But it wasn't up to him.
Adam warily shifted his gaze over to the orchestrator of this alliance. He knew the woman only as Cinder. With pitch black hair draped fashionably across the left of her face and an alluringly cut red dress that showed off the lean muscle of a Huntress, she might have been attractive if she weren't so obviously conceited. Like Roman, she moved with a sort of unearned confidence; also like Roman, she didn't seem to have any cause bigger than herself to fight for, the way Adam had Faunus supremacy at the core of his being.
The difference was that Roman Torchwick was an empty suit who posed one-tenth the danger of his pocket assassin-slash-bodyguard, while Cinder was a legitimate threat.
Not that Adam was afraid. If it came to that, Adam was confident he could take her. She had plenty of power, he'd admit, but power alone wasn't enough. Power had to be directed and honed. You got far better results if you applied half the power to a tenth of the area. It was why Adam used a sword instead of something heavy and blunt. It was why the White Fang struck specific targets instead of just slaughtering any humans they found.
He wondered if Cinder had ever heard of restraint.
"If you want me to go faster," said Roman, "you'd better get me more resources. A great big SDC container ship came in the other day, and I just didn't have the manpower to snag its cargo when I had the chance. I guess that's what happens when a couple dozen of your White Fang boys get picked up at a random warehouse, isn't it?"
Roman smirked as he looked at Adam. "Well, I guess it's not really the White Fang so much these days. Not with all the bite it's lost. Maybe we should call it the White Molar."
From the corner, Roman's mute companion gave some eager claps of appreciation for his joke. Sycophant.
Cinder looked at Adam. "Well? Can you muster additional manpower?"
And now Adam was in a bind. The hardcore of the White Fang was elite, dedicated, and small. This camp was host to a small minority of the White Fang's overall membership. Most White Fang were part-timers; they were mustered for specific ops, then released back to their day jobs to maintain cover. Adam wanted to despise those reservists for not being dedicated enough to the Faunus cause, but he'd rather have their numbers than not have them.
Even those White Fang sympathizers that never put on the mask did the group great service by diverting supplies, or overlooking intrusions, or feeding information to the core. Besides, he'd tentatively admit, if the White Fang's full membership was hiding out in the forest, it would be too difficult for them to stay both hidden and supplied.
All the same, managing the part-timers was a hassle. Call on them too often, and he'd lose them: they'd either burn out or get caught. He could commit more of his core, but he had to keep enough strength in the core for the later stages of the plan, especially with the loss of Banesaw and others at the warehouse.
"Well?" Cinder demanded.
"I can give you three more people a night," said Adam, "and ten more once a week."
"Oh, how cute," said Roman. "He thinks of them as people!"
Before Adam could shoot back at the petty human, Cinder spoke in almost a purr. "And they will be people when we succeed. Why, I'd say they'll be the only people who matter."
There it was. That was the promise that was stringing Adam along: the promise of Faunus ascension and the laying waste of all their many abusers. Adam could bear any burden if it meant working towards that goal.
Even if these 'allies' did their very best to test his stamina.
Cinder swept her gaze over to Roman. "Well? Are those enough extra hands to recover your schedule?"
"Not if we keep missing opportunities like that freighter," said Roman. "Tell you what, I'll take your promises, assume they're accurate, and come up with a new plan for the next few weeks. Then we'll have another one of these little chats to see where we are."
Cinder's expression turned hard; Adam instinctively grabbed his scabbard with his left hand. "That plan had better be ready by tomorrow night," said Cinder. "Don't think you can run out the clock on me. Our target dates have not moved. Every day you waste planning and not stepping up the pace of robberies is another day you fall behind. I will be… displeased if we can't make our goals."
Adam's left hand tightened, but he kept his other reactions buried. Roman, by contrast, visibly swallowed as his cocky demeanor faltered. "Well, you know what they say. The customer is always right!"
"And don't you forget it," said Cinder.
"But you know," said Roman, as if he couldn't resist tempting fate, "I can't help but feel things are a little uneven here. Neo and I, we're putting ourselves on the line for this job, and bull-boy's pushing his chips into the pot, too. But it's been a while since you anted up any of your resources, other than by getting us together to motivate us."
"Are you saying you need more motivation?" Cinder said slowly.
"I'm saying I need more than motivation," Roman nervously corrected. "You haven't gone on a heist since the start of the semester. You haven't let your peons help out, either."
Cinder gave Roman a cool, appraising look, but that just made the thief roll his eyes. "Please, I know all about your little kids. And don't bother asking how I know about them, either. The point is, you're holding out on us."
"Those agents are necessary for later stages of the plan," Cinder said.
Roman spread his arms expansively. "And we're not?"
Cinder's smile was all teeth. "You're much easier to replace than they are."
"Ooh, harsh. But imagine, if you will, that something bad does happen to me when I least expect it, and you somehow don't end up with a stiletto through the heart afterwards. How long do you think it'd take to recruit a new crime boss? Get them up to speed on your plans? Have them draft their new robbery ideas and plan them out? All while making sure they won't turn on you the second they have the chance?"
Cinder wasn't smiling anymore.
Roman waited for her to answer; when she didn't, he seemed to decide that was her answer, and tipped his hat at her. "Maybe I'm not so replaceable after all, hm? Glad we're clear on that point. Well, delightful as this conversation's been, you do want me to draft those plans, so I think I'll excuse myself. I'll see you tomorrow night."
Humming to himself, Roman lifted the flap of the tent and let himself out. His multi-colored friend followed on his heels, but not before giving Adam a smile that held no humor at all.
"That man is going to talk himself into an early grave," said Adam when they'd departed.
Cinder took a moment to compose herself; her usual self-assured smirk returned. "He serves a purpose. We won't need him long-term."
"That had better not be how you think about the Fang," said Adam warningly.
"Of course not," said Cinder with a slight scoff. "I promised you power, glory, and the ruination of human authority. All of which you'll receive. You're not like that peacock of a man."
Comparing humans to animals… Adam wondered for a moment if that should upset him, before deciding he had bigger concerns. "What if you could remind him of his place?"
Cinder arched an eyebrow at Adam.
"He's small potatoes on his own," said Adam. "He only ever thinks he's safe because he's got that little assassin in his pocket. What if he doubted that? What if you showed you could give her orders?"
It took a few seconds, but the corner of Cinder's mouth curled. "I'm guessing you have an idea for orders to give her?"
"Orders that fit right in that mute freak's skillset," said Adam. "Orders that will undermine your enemy, Ozpin. Orders that will help give your phase two smooth sailing."
He knew he had her when he saw the cruelty light up in her eyes.
"Color me intrigued."
"Almost there," said Yang as the team staggered back into their dorm. "Another week of hard studying, exam week, then a long weekend and a whole week of light classes and reviews before the end of the semester. Then we can get some real time off."
"You say it's a light week," said Weiss, going for her scroll to review their schedule, "but if we plan to compete in Vytal, we'll need to put in extra time for team practices to prepare. Between that and White Fang research, we'll still be fairly busy."
"Yeah, but those practices are fun," said Yang. "It makes a difference, you know. Hey, speaking of fun, where is everyone going over semester break? I'm going back to Patch to hang with Dad for a while."
Penny remembered Yang describing her home island before. Penny didn't recall Yang saying much about her father, though. Come to think of it, Blake never mentioned her family, either. Only Weiss mentioned her family on any sort of frequent basis, and then it was nearly always her father. With the way Weiss talked about her father keeping a close watch on her, Penny would have thought Jacques was in the room with them, looking over Weiss' shoulder at all times.
It surprised Penny. Running the world's biggest Dust company should have taken enough of Jacques' attention that he wouldn't have any to spare to micromanage his daughter. So Penny would have expected, at least. Clearly there was much to this dynamic she didn't understand.
It was almost as if Penny thinking about this brought it into existence, given what Weiss said next. "I'll be returning to Atlas to spend some time with my family."
"You don't sound crazy about that idea," said Yang.
"Well, I am," Weiss insisted. "It's good to reconnect with family from time to time, isn't it?"
Penny's success rate at detecting insincerity was poor. Given that few people would admit to lying, feedback was limited, and feedback was essential to Penny learning anything. Even sarcasm, which Penny encountered on a daily basis, was still difficult for her to grasp. She estimated that her false positive rate for insincerity was 8%; her false negative rate was unknowable, but probably much worse.
Even she could tell that Weiss was not especially pleased to be returning to Atlas.
"Would it be better if you had backup?" said Penny. "You are my partner, and I do not wish my partner to face difficulties alone."
"That won't be necessary," Weiss said, but her words and expression were telling Penny different things.
"Of course not," said Penny, "it's a taken option."
"Father does not appreciate people coming around that he didn't invite," Weiss said, and she seemed to be trying so hard to be rigid it was making her shake.
"It's cool," said Yang—clearly an intervention, but one Penny would honor. "Maybe next time."
"Perhaps," said Weiss.
"What about you, Blake?" said Yang.
"I was planning to hang around campus," said Blake.
"Why, are your parents not willing to pony up a ticket to take you back to… wherever?" said Yang.
"I'm sure they would if I asked," said Blake. "It's just…"
"Just what?" said Penny, curious as ever.
Blake swallowed. "I don't talk to my parents much. I haven't in a while, actually."
"And they don't call you?" said Yang. "I chat with my dad every week. I call him or he calls me."
"My parents don't actually have my scroll number," said Blake.
Any traces of levity vanished from Yang. She stared hard at Blake. "When's the last time you talked to your folks?"
"When they left the White Fang and I stayed," said Blake. "Five years ago."
"You haven't talked to your parents in five years?!" said Yang. Penny sympathized. She was starting to accumulate age, but she could still describe it only in months. Years remained unimaginable.
Yang shot to her feet like she'd been shocked and turned away from Blake, a hum escaping from pressed-together lips, like she was squeezing the words she wanted to say into submission. Her right hand clenched and unclenched like a fluttering valve.
"I know what you're going to say," said Blake.
"I don't think you do," said Yang, turning to Blake. "I've gotta tell you, knowing someone is gone is hard and can break a person, but worrying that they might be gone? That they might be in trouble, or might be dead in a ditch somewhere? That's much worse. I know you don't have that concern for your folks, but I guarantee they have that for you."
"I'm not sure they do, though," said Blake, and she did the curl-up-on-herself move that Penny associated with regret. "The last time we spoke, I said things I'm not proud of. I think I really hurt them."
"Then it's even more important to call them," said Yang. "We're stirring up trouble with the White Fang, and we're gonna stick our noses in their business again, and we could easily end up in deep shit like we did in that warehouse. And if we do, and it does blow up this time, then what? Then those things you're not proud of are the last memories your parents will have of you! You'll leave them with nothing but the knowledge that you left, without them ever knowing why—"
Blake had collapsed upon herself even further, until both arms were wrapped around her legs. She looked smaller than the shadow cast by the glow of Yang's hair.
Yes—Yang's hair was lit up like burning gold, and her eyes had shifted from their normal lilac to an angry blood red.
Yang seemed to realize this and regret it, because she turned away from Blake again, her hand still flicking rapidly but without any words. The glow of her hair faded until her golden locks were their normal glossy but non-luminous state.
"Sorry," said Yang roughly, "I think I got to projecting. I'm just saying, I've been on the other side of something like this, and it sucks."
"Right," said Blake in a tiny voice.
Yang took a deep breath, held it, and sighed it out. She looked back over her shoulder with lilac eyes. "Look, there's a reason I call my dad once a week."
"I know," said Blake, still unable to meet Yang's eyes.
"I know I shouldn't be pushing you," said Yang. "I know I'm not supposed to be, like, guilting you or anything. I might have gotten carried away, and I'm sorry if I did.
"But just let me say this. We're talking about competing in Vytal, right? And if we do, our faces will be on every screen on this godsforsaken planet. If your folks see you on a broadcast before you call them, that'll hurt them worse than anything you said five years ago."
Blake said nothing.
The silence extended to where it seemed almost physical, like it was somehow setting off Penny's pain receptors—a paradox, when silence was supposed to be the absence of stimulation. It was novel. She didn't like it.
"Anyway," said Yang, in a still-not-normal-for-Yang voice, "I'm gonna go take a walk. You do you."
She walked for the door, and Penny was gripped by the overwhelming sense that neither Yang nor Blake should be alone at a time like this. But how could she comfort both her friends at the same time?
Oh! She didn't have to, because she had the best partner in the world.
Penny glanced at Weiss and made three quick handsigns: staying Blake interrogative
Weiss' eyes didn't miss much. Her partner nodded to acknowledge the plan. Penny smiled appreciatively and chased Yang out the dorm's door.
It was thrilling that she worked with her partner as well with this sort of thing as with their team attacks. For a moment, Thesaurus gobbled up cycles trying to figure out what this team attack name would be.
Penny shut that down before it could get far.
She caught up with Yang as she left the dorm. "I am here to accompany you," she announced.
"Sure," said Yang. "You can tag along, if you don't mind me acting like a bitch right now."
Penny came up alongside Yang and they set off across the campus. Penny couldn't tell if Yang didn't want to speak, or if she wanted to speak and was keeping it contained, or if Yang had no spare cycles for her Thesaurus to form any words. Those things, from the outside, all looked the same.
It was frustrating to Penny, because those possibilities all had different remedies, and her uncertainty was keeping her from choosing one.
Well… she could always avoid the problem.
"We never talked about my plans for the semester break," she said.
Yang let out a blast of air, then composed herself. "I guess we didn't. What's on your mind?"
"I have very small plans," said Penny. "I have no "home" outside of this campus, so I will stay here. In my free time, I will do periodic maintenance, explore different parts of Vale, and research particle beams."
"That's… not exactly a packed schedule."
"It is not," Penny admitted. "But staying in the dorms too long has its own hazards. Ren and Nora are orphans and they aren't going anywhere, either. A Nora with time on her hands, Forge access, a replenished materials stipend, and access to me, when I also have nowhere to go…"
"…will think it's the perfect time to corner you over your jetpack," said Yang. "Yikes."
"Indeed."
"Well, you could come to Patch with me."
Penny felt surprise, but Yang looked surprised, with wide eyes and an open mouth, as if she hadn't expected those words to come out of her mouth.
"Should I pretend you didn't say that?" Penny said.
Yang's mouth tightened up. "It's okay," said Yang. "It's not, like, embarrassing or anything."
Penny was no expert in human expressiveness, but Yang seemed embarrassed.
"It might not be much fun," Yang said warningly.
"I do not require everything I do to be fun," said Penny. "I appreciate that many important things are not fun. However, you might be underestimating how much fun your family is."
Yang gave a smile that somehow seemed like it was not a smile at the same time. "I suppose if anyone could find the fun in it, it'd be you."
"Thank you, Yang," said Penny. "If it is making you uncomfortable, though, I don't have to come."
"It's fine," said Yang. "It's worth it for you. I can handle it."
"Friend Yang," Penny said seriously, "in my observance, people who are actually fine with a situation do not need to say they're fine three and four and five times. Once is sufficient."
Yang stopped pretending to smile. That made Penny feel better. She didn't like the idea of the Yang faking smiles at her, when Penny could so rarely tell if a smile was fake.
The high summer evening was warm and humid. As Penny understood it, with the city below being in the lowlands, there was very little sea breeze through the city proper, leaving most of it uncomfortable on days like this. Penny would have to take other people's words for it; her comfort was not affected either way. She understood temperature and humidity differences only in the abstract. She could detect them, but they meant little. Ambient temperature only affected her functionality at the extremes, and in those cases Aura helped, too. Unlike her friends, Penny was much less picky about where she went.
She wondered if that would make a good analogy to help Yang feel better.
Before Thesaurus could arrange the words, Yang spoke. "It would probably do Dad some good, actually. To have other people around. I'm sure he'd love to tell you all the embarrassing stories he's got about me. You can even trade your stories about me to him for his."
Penny cocked her head in curiosity. "You seem unconcerned about embarrassment. If these stories do not make you feel bad, doesn't that mean they're not embarrassing?"
"I'm over it," said Yang with a half-grin. Tactical noted that a grin was not a smile. "I'm the strong one, remember? I can take it."
Penny, for the 1437th time, wished that humans came with an instruction manual. Words like "I can take it" implied that Yang was in pain, and Penny would much prefer her friends not feel pain rather than suffer through pain. At the same time, this seemed to be a point of identity and pride for Yang, and trying to play that down might backfire.
"Friend Yang, do you know why Beacon offers no classes on relationships? I have determined I badly need one, yet the course catalog has none on offer."
"I guess it's because no one's an expert," said Yang.
"Perhaps, but there is a vast gap between non-experts and me. I want to make you feel better, but I don't know how."
Yang extended an arm around Penny's shoulders and pulled her close. "That does make me feel better," said Yang.
Tactical advised Penny to treat even small victories as true victories. She pushed her doubts away.
"The more I think about it," said Yang, "the more I like it. Yeah. Come to Patch with me over the break, it'll be a fun time. Well, it'll be a time, anyway."
"I will," said Penny. It was very important to her now. The night's conversations implied that she knew Yang much worse than she thought she did.
This would be her chance to fix that.
"Yang's right," said Blake.
"Don't let her hear you said that," warned Weiss.
Blake gave the impression of a smile that didn't have the energy to commit to the full thing. "I've been avoiding this call for so long. Every time I didn't call, it got harder for me to ever call. It got a little scarier each time… especially since my parents had a point.
"They weren't right about everything, but they were right about some things. They understood Adam better than I ever did. If I do call them, a lot of it will be me admitting how wrong I was."
"You said you left them five years ago, right?" said Weiss. "I don't think there's a single person on this planet who was right about everything at the age of twelve. Possibly my sister, but no one else. Certainly not me."
Blake was able to muster enough confidence to arch an eyebrow. "You're saying you weren't perfect at age twelve?"
"I'm not perfect now," said Weiss, "but I'm working on it. An important part of that is understanding when I've been wrong. You've been a tremendous help in that regard."
"I have?" said Blake.
"To be fair, you've been wrong a lot, too," said Weiss. "We worked on that paper about the warehouse fiasco together, after all. I know its contents."
Blake winced.
"But you've also been correct about many other things, whether that was giving Penny a chance, or Faunus exploitation in the mining industry, or even sleep schedules. It's a little annoying, actually. Could you be wrong more often?"
A laugh somehow escaped from Blake before she could throttle it.
"However embarrassed you are to admit when you're wrong," said Weiss, "it's twice as bad if you refuse to admit it when it's obvious."
"Oh, it's obvious all right. But even when it is, my first instinct is to run away."
"Says the woman who led a charge into a Centinel nest," said Weiss drily.
"That's the exception that proves the rule," said Blake. "I run away constantly. You've seen it. When we were made a team and we were on stage, the only thing I could think of was how badly I wanted to get off that stage. In our very first Aura lesson, we were supposed to stop that pendulum, but my nerve failed when I saw the hit coming and I ran away. That's the gimmick of my semblance: I leave a shadow behind to take hits for me while I run away. Even my soul tells you, me, everyone… that's who I really am."
"You are determined to make yourself feel bad," said Weiss.
It was a short trip, Blake wanted to say. She was used to being told she wasn't good enough. That she couldn't be good enough. That she needed someone else to—
And then a different memory struck her. You are looking for reasons to disqualify yourself.
And another. What a wise and considerate leader you are!
And another. You have my full support.
Blake forced herself to swallow. "I suppose I have run away less since I came to Beacon," she admitted.
"Finally we start to listen," said Weiss. "And if you didn't run away those other times, you don't have to run away this time."
"Maybe you're right," said Blake.
"Of course I am," said Weiss, and she smiled.
"Ugh, and here you were saying we should never tell Yang when she's right because she'd be obnoxious about it."
"Being obnoxiously right could be a thing for this whole team, I suppose," said Weiss.
The women thought about it for a moment, then said at the same time, "Except for Penny."
Next time: …When the Fix Is In