Penny checked on the new bonsai that she bought weeks ago.
The tree had no branches crossing into each other, nor did it have any wilting or off-color leaves. The shape of the crown was just perfect; not too uneven nor too cut up to the point of an unnatural, unsightly look. The grow light just had its battery replaced not too long ago, and as usual, the automatic routine to shut off at sunset and turn back on at sunrise was working.
Perfect.
She turned to Laurel, who was packing her clothes and belongings for the trip to Vale alongside her teammates, then approached her with a rather uncharacteristic grin.
"Yo, Lolo," greeted Penny, left hand on hip.
Immediately, Laurel could te—Wait. What did she call her?
"L–Lolo?!"
Laurel blushed and looked away, at a loss of words. Why in the world did she call her Lolo? Does she know that her name was in fact Laurel and not that?! She didn't know what in the living hell was going on with her team leader, but all she knew was that she did not see that coming. At all. Worse, her reaction had almost made Penny laugh! Flustered, she shook her head with reddened cheeks and clenched fists.
"Soz, Laurel!" Penny chuckled, then let out a happy sigh. "Anywaays..." She cleared her throat. "I'm... already done packing my luggage, so I'm right here waiting on you three."
Just like that, her team leader was back to how she usually was... right? Well, she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she was certainly noticing her more human mannerisms: actual body language in tandem with her speech, not to mention a more three-dimensional voice. She'd snapped back to her usual vocabulary, but it didn't seem so mechanical anymore.
Someone was rubbing off on her, for sure.
"You seem more human," Laurel pointed out.
Penny blinked. "Do I, Lolo?"
Laurel—Oh no.
"I–It's Laurel and you know my name very well!"
Penny burst into laughter. Laurel knew that at this rate, it was gonna be a longer day than she'd already anticipated...
. . .
Pretty soon, Team PASL landed in Vale. Penny had wanted to visit Beacon over Winter Break so that Yang could see her whole team, herself included. She was so excited that she even wanted her father to come with her! Unfortunately, he was working overtime to fulfill the remaining orders for new prosthetics, which was understandable. That said, it didn't stop her and her fellow students from freely roaming around. At least until class starts again.
"So," Alyssa began, "why are we here again?"
"So everyone can meet my friend Yang!" Penny exclaimed.
Ciel turned to Alyssa and Laurel. "Well, they are on very good terms," she said.
Just like that, Penny took her teammates on a boat ride to Beacon, and like last time, she rode at the front. This time, everyone else was there to witness her great enthusiasm, her hair strands flowing freely and her clothes fluttering against the wind like crazy.
'Never gets old,' Alyssa remarked to herself, in a rare moment of warmth.
Eventually, they reached their destination: wooden docks that led to a long flight of stairs and a series of revolving doors leading to several lifts. Seeing how long the stairs were, everyone decided on taking a lift, which they happily boarded and allowed to automatically take them up.
Penny took the time to note how her team members dressed for winter: Alyssa had a substantially different look with ski goggles worn on her forehead, a messily-worn studded leather coat, tattered orange gloves, light gray shorts, white leggings underneath, and dark-gray heavy-duty boots with black laces. Ciel, meanwhile, kept her beret, but switched to a white coat, black gloves, blue-and-white pants, and black shoes.
She looked down and realized that all she did to prepare for the colder weather was... wear a green scarf and mittens.
Oh well!
However, as Penny waited, her mood soured.
'Even if I got away from Atlas Academy,' she thought, 'will I really be free from the assignment? Will I be able to live my life not as a test subject, but as a real girl? Even then...' She took off her mittens, then looked at her hands.
'Can I live that life?'
"Penny?"
Penny turned to Laurel, who had called out to her in concern. Her mood mirrored Penny's, having seen her space out like that a moment ago.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"..."
"What's wrong?"
"I don't want to talk about it," was all Penny said.
"You don't have to if you don't want to." She nodded. "We're letting you know."
The rest of the ride was quiet. Pretty soon, the lift slowed; thanks to the many times she rode the elevator, Penny immediately recognized that they were about to reach their destination, which could only mean one thing...
"Oh! We're almost there!" she exclaimed.
"Patience, leader," Alyssa spoke up.
"Ope!" She covered her mouth.
"You didn't have to do that, y'know."
She uncovered her mouth. "Oh."
"Penny," Ciel said, "we're here."
The glamor of Beacon and its glamorous Neo-Victorian architecture never failed to awe Penny; instead, it shone brighter in the snow than it ever did in the fall. It also somehow bustled with more life; most students weren't wearing their uniforms, but rather diverse swaths of stylish winter clothes on the likes of coats, beanies, gloves, layers, and much, much more. Those who did usually paired them with a scarf, a coat, mittens, or some combination of the above.
"It's even better than last time!" she exclaimed. "Yang said she and Team RWBY'll meet us near the cafeteria, but I can't stop looking..!"
Ciel asked, "At what time?"
She checked the time on her Scroll. 1:43 PM. Just 13 minutes past the time they were due to meet. "Oh—" Penny broke into a sprint, looking left and right as she took a sharp turn to a particular path. "We're late!"
"Penny, calm!" Alyssa shouted, having likewise taken off alongside her teammates. "It's not our fault, the ferry took longer to start up than usual!"
As the four navigated through the swaths of students and visitors, Penny managed to catch a few interesting sights. One was a raccoon Faunus girl with an eyepatch showing off to a white-haired boy with a baseball cap, both being short with the girl being even shorter. Another was a neon blue-haired girl signing a fan's autograph as her friends stood by.
Eventually, she saw her blonde friend Yang standing by the cafeteria, wearing a brown-and-beige motorcycle jacket over a slightly undersized... t-shirt? ...Tank top with her emblem on it, black heavy-duty trousers with square dark-gray knee patches, and the same knee-high boots, complete with that purple bandana on that left knee.
As Penny skidded to a stop, she held up a hand to her teammates that signaled "stop," which they kindly obeyed. Then she locked eyes with her friend and walked up to her, waving.
"S—"
"Salutations!" exclaimed Yang, who held her arms out for a hug.
Penny blinked. That voice was unmistakably Yang's, but the tone and cadence had changed; notably, her voice seemed higher-pitched and more cheerful than usual. It wasn't just her voice too; her body language appeared choreographed too.
That aside, she raised her hand for a fist bump. The two's eyes widened, then they froze in place. Suddenly, they scrambled to awkwardly change their welcoming gestures—between bows, high fives, salutes, and all other sorts of greetings—in rapid succession before finally setting on a rather awkward handshake. Yang in particular felt a rather hard squeeze, but so did Penny.
They froze again, realizing what had just happened. Letting go, the two turned away from each other, laughing up a storm.
"Nailed it!" exclaimed Yang, slapping her knee.
"We did! Ahaha—haaa!~"
Yang and Penny let out sighs of relief, then once again they faced each other. The former in particular took note of her teammates, whom she saw together for the first time ever. Knowing that Penny led a Huntress-in-Training life back at Atlas, it wasn't a surprise that she'd meet the team in full sooner or later, but it still felt kinda... surreal? Almost as though that this team Penny usually spoke of actually did exist.
Yang asked, "So, this is your team, Penny?"
"That's Team PASL—short for parasol—to you!" Penny saluted.
"So this is Penny after all," a familiar voice said. "I suppose third impressions won't be too bad."
Penny turned to see that a friend of Yang—Blake—had arrived, wearing two white asymmetrical crop leather jackets for her shoulders, a black turtleneck with sleeves that looped around the middle of her ring and middle fingers, black cargo pants, and black knee-length high-heeled boots—themselves equipped with matching color crampons that allowed traction with strategically-placed metal spikes.
"Salutations, Blake!" she exclaimed. "This is my team, Team PASL! Or 'parasol!'"
Blake looked at the three other members in question and simply waved at them. "...Hi."
"Yang told me all about you being the reader of a thousand books! Are you really the reader of a thousand books?"
"Me?" Blake asked. "'The' reader of a thousand books?" Shrug. "That'd be quite the achievement. But, I'd only be 'a' reader of a thousand books."
"I read dozens of books, so that makes us both big readers!" She leaned in with a smile. "Right, Blake?"
"You could say that. In fact..." Blake walked up to her, taking a deep breath. "I've been reading a new series that I just picked up: The Ring Chronology. It just reached its final book called Brilliant Remembrance, but I'm still at Wyvern's Rebirth."
"Ooooh!"
"Wanna borrow the first book?"
Penny scratched her chin. She'd actually heard of the Ring Chronology before and was thinking of picking that up after finishing reading X-Ray and Vav. However, she'd only just started reading the first few issues "Maybe!"
"Let me know if you want to."
"I will, Blake!"
"That was Blake," Yang began. "She usually doesn't speak that much, but once you find something that interests her, she can open up quite a bit."
"Ain't gonna lie," said Alyssa, "I barely know how to read."
"You serious?"
"Well, I came from Vacuo. Survival was more important than academics." She shrugged.
As the two started a chat, Laurel looked around her for any of Yang's other teammates, only to see none. She then stepped up to Yang. "So," she inquired, "Where's Weiss and Ruby?"
"I don't know..." Yang spoke up when she stepped back and bumped into something. Gasping, she turned on her heel to face Ruby, who was cowering behind her. She had traded her skirt and petticoat for black pants and red mittens, as well as her usual cloak for one that wrapped around her from shoulder to shoulder. "Ruby—hi!" Very awkwardly, she quickly waved her hand as her sister took a peek at Penny before looking her in the eye.
"H–Hey!..." Ruby said, clenching her teeth within a forced smile. "This isn't uncomfy at all, I just wanted to say 'hi!'" She raised a hand to wave, but then she immediately lowered it.
"Did she really..?" Blake was asking when the arrival of Weiss caught her attention. Instead of her usual dress, she arrived with a white single-breasted coat and A-line skirt, both with red linings and a baby blue fade towards the bottom of each garment. She also wore black thigh-high stockings and knee-high wedge-heeled boots. Finally, she had traded her earrings for brighter o—
"Yooo-hooo!"
Alyssa sharply turned around, trying to look where that shrill, high voice came from. Whatever bitterness she had for Weiss was suddenly replaced by utter bewilderment as she found the voice of the exclamation: a redhead with blue eyes and a bright, black-pink-and-white winter outfit who was waving towards the group of people.
"Is it someone new~?" she asked.
"What the—Agh–Eh-Nora, what are you doing here?!" Ruby asked.
"Ahh, nothing! Just wanted to join in and all. Is that bad?"
"Oh, no..." She chuckled nervously. "You're free to join us!"
"Then in that case, hellooo~"
"Salutations, Nora!" Penny exclaimed. "My name is Penny, and this is my team PASL!" She then muttered to herself, "Wow, that's the third time already."
"And I'm Nora Valkyrie—ready to go out into the snow!" she exclaimed. "So what are we waiting for?"
. . .
The open area was bustling with activity.
People around were building all sorts of snowmen, making snow angels, or taking pictures. This was no different for teams RWBY and PASL. Blake and Laurel had gone off to make snow forts and Weiss and Ciel stood back to watch.
Penny in particular stood back as well, watching as Yang, Nora, and Alyssa talked to each other. It was always fascinating how differently everyone would speak from one another; Yang had this fun, outgoing cadence to her speech, while Nora's felt rather brash, but also... soft at times? Well, either way, she enjoyed the small little interactions that would soon cascade into something much bigger...
"Well," began Nora, "a little snowfall isn't gonna exactly hurt, huh guys?"
"Hey, icy what you did there!" Yang winked.
"Uh..." Alyssa was scratching her head when she looked away. As she did, Nora smirked, then picked up snow, formed a ball, and then threw it up in the air. "I don't see any snowfall—"
SPLAT!
Nora laughed at the freshly-pelted Yang, whose scalp was now covered in snow.
"Now you see!" Nora exclaimed, continuing to cackle.
Alyssa groaned, then joined in on the laughing. Little did she and Nora know, Yang would soon return the favor...
"GAH!"
Nora spun quite dramatically, stepping back with her hand where she'd been hit: her face. However, even with her sight obscured by the snow, she took aim at Yang and threw, only missing by mere inches.
"Looks like the snowfall's pickin' up, huh?" Yang winked.
Eventually, Nora had gotten the snow off. But if anyone were to look, they would see a rather wicked smile forming on her face. She threw another snowball at Yang. Right after, she made and pitched a third one at Alyssa, who was unaware and looking away, watching everyone else have their own fun.
And bombs away.
Unfortunately for her, Alyssa outright caught the snowball mid-air.
"So we're having a snowball fight?" She asked.
This sent shivers up Nora's spine. It'd be one thing if Alyssa was focused on her, but she didn't even appear to be looking at her. But apparently, she had seen that coming anyway. With her focus now on Nora, Alyssa smiled, then threw that snowball right back at a speed faster than Nora could have anticipated, knocking her off her feet in the process.
"Well then." She smirked, then made a much larger hunk of snow in her hands.
As Alyssa took off straight at her bestest friend, who took off running, Yang made another snowball, and launched it right back. This time, she barely flinched with a bit of snow on her shoulder.
"Bring it on!" Yang declared.
And so, they were off.
With one snowball after the other, one other person got caught in the crossfire, then they responded with a barrage of snowballs of their own. Then whole teams joined in on the chaos and started unleashing all sorts of snow-related mayhem on each other. The blue-haired girl in particular took out a magic wand and waved it around, forming a whirlwind of snow that she sent out towards one of the teams. When Nora then saw three snowballs coming her way, she not only dodged them, but also responded with surgical snowball strikes to the face.
Amidst all this, Yang happily chucked a snowball at Blake, who took a chunk out of her snow fort so she could throw it at her familiar. Thus, the two entered an arms race of who could throw the biggest snowball. Nora was by Yang's side, keeping an eye out for any challengers.
Penny was watching all this unfold before her eyes, and truth be told: she wanted in! She fantasized for the moment they'd join forces and dominate the open field together for as long as they could hold out with all sorts of fun and exciting snow-related attacks...
One small problem: the last time she joined a fight it didn't go so well.
Everyone ran. She was left all alone in the smoke and chaos of a now-ruined pier. A pier that she destroyed by shooting large beams at Bullheads that not only crashed into entire stacks of Dust shipping containers, but had also ignited them.
The moment she saw Ruby, who stood on the outskirts of the open area, the world stopped to her.
"Ruby?"
Penny jogged up to her friend's team leader and sister, who stepped back in what she could only assume was a mixture of mild shock and fear. "Ruby, what's going on?"
"Uh, Penny, I..." She gulped. Penny knew that what she was about to say was going to hurt. "I... don't know how to tell you, but... you kind of scare me."
There it was.
It had been quite a while since then, but she could never forget how she made people scream and run in terror instead of bringing smiles to their faces like a good huntress would. It was the moment she learned about the true extent of her strength the hard way, too; she'd only really trained in controlled areas where the collateral damage was minimal.
She had since gone to great lengths to avoid that kind of situation, even if it meant actively barring herself from some of her signature moves.
But it goes without saying that she wasn't enjoying that as much.
Not only was she depriving herself of her own enjoyment, she even failed at that, too. Such as back at that Beacon gym where Yang tried to teach her boxing only for her to straight-up almost kill her.
Now it was happening again. She was already failing to hold back her strength. She did so well at gardening! How could this be?!
"Oh, Ruby." Penny frowned. "I do not know if you notice, but I've been trying not to repeat what happened back at the pier. I even take great care of a new bonsai tree I bought. I'm always careful with it. But every time I try to do something more than that, I end up repeating history..." She fell to her knees.
"I'm sorry."
Now was Ruby's chance to walk away and forget about ever talking to Penny ever again. Now was Ruby's chance to tell Yang that maybe she was better off without each other after all.
But she didn't.
Instead, she tapped her shoulder, making her look up to her pleading eyes.
"It's not over yet," began Ruby. "You may have... err, growing pains being out here like that, but you're learning. I don't know anything about gardening... well, anything that didn't fly over my head—but I'm sure that tree's doing really, really well." She smiled. "If you can do that? You can control yourself in a fight."
That was a good point, she had to admit. She didn't accidentally snip off entire parts of her tree; rather, she had always done a perfect job taking care of it whenever it came time. All thanks to Professor Peach, who had taught her everything she needed to know about taking care of the more decorative plants; and Yang, who had taken her to the Beacon garden during Treaty Week.
She could control herself with her bonsai tree.
She could control herself in a fight.
"...Ohhh, Ruby!" Penny brought Ruby into a hug. A very light one, but still. "You're the best friend's friend Yang could ever have!"
"Oh, er, thank you!" Ruby smiled. "Uh, it's... okay to hug tighter."
So she did. But not too tight.
Ruby returned the favor, although she did hug very tightly. Not that Penny minded, though. Or that stayed like this for a little while.
A snowball passing by them, however, was enough to bring them back to reality, so they broke up their hug.
"So... what now?" Penny asked.
Ruby held out her hand. "Wanna join the snowball fight together?"
Penny's jaw dropped with a smile in excitement. Ruby, the girl who feared her most, was inviting her to join the big snowball fight? How could she say "no" to that?!
"Yes."
Penny shook her hand with a stupidly big warm smile.
"HA-hahahahahaaa!"
Nora's booming voice turned them towards the boisterous redhead, who had climbed on top of a new, tall snow fort that hadn't been there before. Three new faces—a blonde, a red-haired warrior, and a jet black-haired man—were trying to get up to her, only to meet with piles of snow raining down upon them. Yang and Alyssa were buried under those piles as well.
"Penny," Ruby started, "I'm gonna do something crazy for the first time. Protect me, okay?"
She saluted. "Sure can do!"
She nodded, then immediately took off in the opposite direction, dissolving into a twisting vortex of flower petals that picked up snow and then turned around, honing right into the huge fort Nora had put together.
As Penny ran after Ruby with a determined look on her face, she watched as she landed her two feet against the fort's walls and slid down, right as the snow crashed into the fort. Nora screamed and jumped off. As she did, the fort finally toppled over and collapsed into the ground with a crash of frosty mists and debris flying all over the open area. Satisfied, Penny ran after her, picking up a snowball while she rejoined Ruby by her side.
Together, they threw snowballs at Nora, who went on the defensive by dodging away into snow fort after snow fort, doing her best to avoid what would soon become a barrage of snowballs from every side.
Between dodging another snowball and getting between snow forts and people, Nora had managed to slip by everyone, leaving some wondering where she was. However, this left her vulnerable to Ruby and Penny's perfect plan: throw a snowball in that precise direction first, then another in the direction she's sure to dodge in to catch her off guard.
Dastardly. They're gonna do it.
Penny emerged from a ruined fort to throw a snowball, then another. Nora dodged to her left... where another from Ruby was headed. This time it hit her face, blocking her vision. Then, plop; another hit. Another one!
Triple kill! Ultra kill!
RAMPAGE!
Finally, Nora fell to the snowy ground, overwhelmed from everyone's snowballs. Various people around Penny and Ruby cheered, themselves included.
They had done it; the Queen of the Castle was removed from her throne.
AN: Thanks to Cent for looking over this chapter!