On the left!

Claws ripped through the air, promising a swift and messy end.

An even swifter end was visited upon them as Weiss' rapier tore through the offending arm.

To the right and behind now.

Flexing her Aura for power, Weiss leapt up and behind the snow-white Beowolves that had been coming from her blind spot. Her two attackers nearly collided where she'd been; with the aid of a glyph, Weiss fired forward with enough speed and power to skewer both foes in the same motion.

Both sides.

The Beowolves were slow in dissolving, so Myrtenaster was stuck in their bodies, but Weiss had learned a solution from her team. She channeled Gravity Dust all along her sword and fired it from the point, like Penny would fire the rifle in her sword. She let the recoil push her back; once more her attackers met where she had been. A wave of Burn Dust consumed them both.

Above!

A swarm of gull-sized Nevermores dove down at her. This was almost too easy. Weiss sprang to the side to avoid their initial attack. As they banked towards her, she turned Wind Dust against them. Their small, lightweight bodies were captured by the vortex instantly, scattering them every which way—into walls, into the ground, or even straight up to be torn apart by shear. In moments, the swarm was gone.

Weiss killed the gusts and returned to a ready stance, senses alert for any sign of the next attack.

Waiting.

Waiting.

"That is… acceptable."

Weiss tried and failed to contain her excitement as she turned to Winter. "You really think so?!"

"For a novice," Winter clarified. "You used 20% more Wind Dust than necessary, and you wasted even more with that Gravity trick."

"That wasn't wasteful," said Weiss. "It let me regain position when I was stuck."

"The only reason you were stuck was you over-committed in the first place," said Winter. "Using sloppiness to compensate for earlier sloppiness isn't the solution. The solution is to not be sloppy in the first place."

"I will continue to improve," said Weiss.

"One can hope."

"I dealt with those fast enough," said Weiss, a rush of seemingly-earned confidence thrumming through her body at having dismissed her sister's summons so quickly. "I'm surprised you haven't sent more. Was this exercise just shorter, or did I go that much faster this time?"

"The exercise was shorter," said Winter. "It wasn't a full-fledged training session. Presumably you get those in school. I merely wanted to see where you stand. The test was long enough for that."

As proud as Weiss was, she felt her hopes falter. Time with Winter was precious—she wanted more of it. "We're not done yet, are we?"

Somehow, those words made Winter look uncomfortable. "We're done training. There are other things I wanted to do on this visit."

Weiss stowed her sword and curtsied neatly. "I'm at your disposal while you're here, sister."

Winter took a long time to speak again, and Weiss was unsure if she was hesitating or going for dramatic effect. At length, she said, "I see that you're getting sufficient exercise. Are you eating properly?"

So this would be an inspection. Weiss had received plenty of those in this house, she knew this routine. "I follow your nutrition guide for all of my meals."

"And you're getting enough social interaction?"

"All that I can stand, honestly," Weiss said with chagrin.

"Have you…" And that was definitely hesitation Winter was exhibiting now. "…made any friends?"

"I have outstanding teammates who excel in the classroom and on the battlefield," Weiss said snappily. "We work hard to ensure that we are the sharpest—"

"I know about your grades," Winter interrupted. "Your letters have mentioned those. I'm asking if you have made friends at Beacon."

It was such an unexpected question Weiss had to replay it in her mind to ensure she'd heard correctly. "They don't have the social station or moneyed backgrounds we usually look for in allies," Weiss said, trying to use the word "friend" the way their father always used it, "but I nevertheless—"

"Don't make me repeat myself," said Winter.

Weiss stared at Winter. Understanding refused to come.

Winter clenched her hands tightly before speaking again as if compelled by the silence. "My time at Atlas Academy was very successful. I earned the right to be taken seriously for my achievements, not for my family name. A fast-track career in the military was my just reward. However… I realize in hindsight that this level of dedication had… costs. I had some allies when all was said and done, and many contacts, but no friends.

"Don't misunderstand," Winter said in a rush even as her posture suffered. "Friends are a luxury rather than a necessity. Still, if you're truly doing as well at Beacon as you say in your letters, then perhaps you have some time to spare for friends."

Weiss watched her sister carefully, expecting at any moment for her to contradict or qualify her words, or reveal some trap or test. Winter did nothing of the sort, but stood with rising discomfort.

"I think I am making friends," Weiss said with caution. "Purely as a side-effect from studies and combat practice, of course."

"Of course. Friends like whom?"

"Pyrrha Nikos," said a part of Weiss that was not her brain.

It might have been the first time Weiss had impressed her sister. One eyebrow infinitesimally rose. "That is a powerful friend to make."

"Yes she is." The words gushed from Weiss' mouth, devoid of any of her precious dignity.

The other eyebrow rose.

Weiss felt an overwhelming urge to change the subject away from Pyrrha. "And I have others, too," she blathered. "There's also my teammates."

The eyebrows bent into a frown. "Atlas doctrine is quite clear. Friendship among teammates is discouraged. It frequently interferes with mission accomplishment."

Something hot bubbled up inside Weiss. Sure, this was her sister, and Winter had always known best… but if Winter was just quoting Atlas doctrine, well, Weiss could quibble with that. "My experience so far suggests otherwise," she said daringly.

"Is that so? You must tell me more about them, then."

The hot feeling vanished so quickly that Weiss felt like crumbling in upon herself. How could she possibly explain her team to Winter?

Penny, the amnesiac gynoid? Blake, the literal Faunus terrorist? Yang, the… Yang?

"Is something wrong?"

Weiss desperately toggled through her options. If there was no way to explain her teammates individually, maybe collectively? Maybe describe their dynamics?

"Don't tell me you talked up your teammates but now are embarrassed by them," said Winter.

"I'm not embarrassed by my team," Weiss said fiercely… and inspiration struck. "Well, I should say I'm not embarrassed by my teammates. I am embarrassed by my team."

"Double-speak doesn't suit you," said Winter. "You're at your best when you're direct."

"Our team name is the worst," said Weiss in agony. "We're Team B-X-P-S, spoken as… biceps."

Winter blinked.

"Go ahead, say it," sighed Weiss. "I know exactly how juvenile and undignified and crass the name is. You can't say anything I haven't already thought."

"…if that's your biggest complaint about your team, then you are blessed."

Weiss frowned. "I beg your pardon?"

Winter put her hands behind her back. Clarity came to Weiss like an exploding firework: Winter did that not as an expression of serenity, but to enforce control upon herself. "I carefully avoided saying my team name in all the time I was at the Academy. This was deliberate. I will explain my team name, I will give you thirty seconds to laugh about it, and then we will never speak of it again."

How could Weiss possibly refuse that? "Yes, ma'am."

Winter took a bracing breath. "My team was P-W-N-Y. Spoken 'pony'."

"Pony?!"

Winter forced her eyes shut. "Yes. Pony."

The laughter burst from Weiss like a geyser. "Pony—pony!"

"I know."

"That spelling is so stupid!"

"I know."

"It's not even a color!"

Winter's eyes were closed, and still one of them twitched. "I am aware. I made all of these complaints, and all were disregarded."

Weiss laughed even harder while marveling at how diligently Winter had avoided mentioning this in the past. "Pony—I can't! I can't…"

"It's been thirty seconds," Winter said. It wasn't easy, but Weiss was able to pull in her laughter for her sister's sake. "I submit to you that, if I am able to overcome that team name, you can do better with a more reasonable name."

Weiss nodded. Already her thoughts on the subject were shifting, and new ideas were coming to her. "Thank you for sharing that," she said.

For a moment, Winter's bearing relaxed a little, like there was something else—something warmer—beneath the front she'd built up at the Academy. Like admitting that, and letting Weiss in, had cracked through a barrier between the women they hadn't known was there. "Weiss…" she said softly.

The door behind them opened. "Misses Schnee," said their butler, Klein, "I apologize for interrupting. Master Schnee has noted your arrival and… asked after the both of you."

Winter went stiffer than ever.

"I delayed as long as I could," Klein said apologetically, "but I had to inform him eventually."

"I'm happy you got us the time you did," said Winter. "Unfortunately, I have negative desire to see father again. I'll be departing."

"Of course, madame," said Klein with a bow.

Weiss felt the crazy desire to wrap her sister up in a hug. The insanity of her teammates rubbing off on her, no doubt. Schnees didn't do that kind of physical affection, and Weiss was no more ready to give it than Winter was to receive. She did think about it, though, as Winter made her escape.

That left Weiss alone with Klein, who spoke to her apologetically. "Regretfully, Miss Schnee, there's no way for you to evade this summons. Your father wants to see you."

"Father does tend to get what he wants," Weiss said.

Klein's eyes shifted to pink, and his voice became something almost effeminate. "It's not about getting what you want. It's about wanting what you get. You're actually ahead of him in some ways."

Weiss was stunned.

Klein's eyes returned to blue and his voice to its normal register. "Unless, of course, what you wanted was to avoid your father, in which case you're out of luck."

Weiss laughed. "I suppose so. Thank you, Klein."

He smiled at her, then held open the door for her to proceed.

Schnee Manor, Weiss realized was nothing like Beacon. Beacon was warm; the air in the Manor was too cold for comfort, while still sporting the dryness of air that had been reheated to lifelessness. Beacon's floors were covered in cheap carpeting that sported myriad stains of questionable origin; the Manor was tiled in plain patterns repeated ad infinitum. Any number of Beacon's rooms would be emitting strange sounds or smells when Weiss passed them; the Manor's rooms were universally silent and sterile. The halls and dorms and buildings of Beacon were bedecked in a broad range of warm colors, and when Weiss included the students, the place was a riot. The Manor was universally icy blue and marble white.

Weiss didn't live in a home. She lived in a crypt.

She'd minded it less when it had been her whole world. Knowing that Beacon existed, and that it was nearly the opposite of the Manor in every way, gave her perspective.

Which was as much curse as blessing, she supposed.

Many of the Manor's qualities grew more severe as Weiss drew nearer to Jacques' study. Were the halls here spotlessly clean because the cleaning staff knew to keep it that way? Or were they spotless the way a sarcophagus is spotless, because there was nothing living there to dirty it?

Probably both, Weiss decided as she knocked on Jacques' door.

"Come in," called Jacques. She obeyed.

Jacques Schnee, nee Gele, was only just taller than Weiss in her heels. His slicked-back hair and walrus mustache, once dark brown, had whitened until they ironically matched the colors of the Schnee family he'd married into; his light blue eyes always had. The color coordination extended to his wardrobe, with the exception of a red tie, a shock of color against the normal Schnee palette.

Weiss wondered if it was that eye-catching quality he was after, or if he'd taken to heart the fashion canard that a red tie meant authority, and felt the need to express that at all times.

"Weiss," he said. "I'm glad you found time in your busy day to come by."

His voice was apparently in good humor, but Weiss knew better. When she'd told Blake about polite words hiding ten lies inside, Jacques was Exhibit A. The implicit critique in his words? Exhibit B.

"Of course, father," she said with perfect, trained gentility. "You asked me to, after all."

He watched her for a moment, as if judging if she'd been obedient enough, then said, "I heard your sister came by."

It was a test. Weiss didn't know what kind. "She was checking up on my progress as a Huntress," Weiss said carefully.

"Was she satisfied?"

This was a trap she was walking into, but she didn't know its nature—she could fight a grimm ambush, but not this kind. "She said I'm making progress," Weiss hedged.

"Not enough progress, if you're on academic probation," Jacques said cuttingly.

Weiss flinched. What could she say? Saying that her probation was a matter of school discipline, not grades, would just change how Jacques was attacking her. It wouldn't stop him.

"Tell me what rank you are," he said. "Go class-by-class."

"In Dust I'm first, obviously," she said. "I'm also first in History and in Logistics."

He waved a hand at her to go on.

No escape. "I'm second in Math and Combat."

"Second, are we?" said Jacques, lacing his hands together and leaning forward.

She felt his change in posture like a physical weight, like a harbinger of doom. "Pyrrha Nikos is top in Combat. That's no surprise, she's the Invincible Girl."

"Whereas you are quite vincible, aren't you? And what's your excuse for being second in Math?"

That it would be impossible to be first when she was in the same class as Penny, a gynoid who thought in math… was what Weiss could not say. "No excuse, father."

"Hm," he said. "What of your other classes?"

"Third in Grimm Studies." Behind Penny, whose knowledge was literally encyclopedic, and Yang, who'd focused on that subject for a decade. "Third in Armaments." Behind Penny, of course, and shockingly Nora, whose aptitude for the subject was low-key terrifying. "Third in Aura." Behind Penny and Ren, barely ahead of Pyrrha. "Fourth in Survival." Behind Ren and Nora, who'd lived the subject matter while growing up, and Blake, ditto.

Jacques shook his head slightly. "I didn't allow you to go to this… school… so you could be so embarrassing."

"I have classmates who are hyper-competent in their specialties, there's no embarrassment there," said Weiss. "My overall rank, when you factor in everything, is top of the class!"

"More excuses," said Jacques. "Maybe you should spend less time making excuses and more time putting in the work."

Weiss fumed—she was the valedictorian, and that somehow wasn't good enough?! It took all she had to hold her tongue.

"Your performance is substandard," Jacques went on. "Think of the SDC, the company you hope one day to inherit. The SDC is first in revenues, first in profits, first in dividends, first in gross production, and first in subspecies production for every Dust."

It's also first in fraud, tax evasion, and trafficking-in-persons, Weiss thought bitterly.

"You are underachieving," said Jacques, his eyes tightening. "If this continues, I will be forced to withdraw you from that school for… remediation."

Technically, he couldn't. Weiss knew that. A student at a Huntsman Academy was a legal adult and the Academies were protected by law and tradition. The only institution that could remove a student from an Academy was the Academy itself.

Weiss knew that the law wasn't ironclad. If she were to disobey Jacques that brazenly, if she were to insist on going back to Beacon and defy his attempts to stop her… well, he'd already disinherited one daughter. He had Whitley for backup. He could afford to disinherit her, too, if it came to that.

And, whereas Winter had taken that "consequence" only too gladly, Weiss did still want to inherit. How could she fix the SDC if it was taken away?

That was the trump card Jacques held. So long as he had that, he could always bring her to heel.

So, even though he was completely wrong, even though she was doing as well as a human (as a person, she corrected) could be expected to do, he could still sit there and say she wasn't doing well enough.

And she could do nothing but accept that judgment.

"Our academic probation ended with the semester," Weiss said. "We are in good standing."

"Beacon's standards are lower than Schnee standards," said Jacques. "Remember that."

"Of course, father," Weiss said, bowing her head. She would remember—and she remembered many other things, too. Conversations in the night, research, news reports fed to her from novel sources…

"Father," she said, "the incident that got us put on probation had to do with the White Fang."

"I hope you gave those animals the what-for," said Jacques.

"We did," said Weiss, feeling queasy. "But it makes me wonder. Have you ever thought about why the White Fang targets the SDC, specifically?"

"It doesn't take much thought," said Jacques. "Why do flies swarm the largest horse in the herd? We have the most worth stealing. Our hard work makes us successful. The most successful companies are the biggest targets."

"So this is martyrdom," Weiss said.

"No good deed goes unpunished," said Jacques.

Weiss wanted to throw up.

He kept her waiting a bit longer, just to make her twist, before smiling. "Be sure to put in a good showing at the Vytal Tournament. It will be excellent advertising."

Weiss squeezed her hand. Just like her singing! Her brilliance, her virtuosity, made to serve him-!

Except Weiss would be at Vytal for Penny. For Blake. Even for Yang. Not for him. That was her choice.

"I will comport myself as a Schnee should," she said.

His smile broadened.

"That's my girl."

A nunchaku whizzed through the air at Blake's face—and passed through it.

"Damn," Sun hissed as he pivoted, blindly swinging to where he guessed Blake had dodged.

It was a good guess; Blake's respect for his instincts rose as she deflected his blow on the back of Shroud. Before she could retaliate, he chained a kick into his strike and hit her in the side.

It had enough force to knock her back a few steps, and she backpedaled a few more to open range.

"You are so tricky with those clones," said Sun as he pulled his nunchaku back into staff form. "I can never pin down what you're really up to. Kinda like real life, actually."

Blake wasn't fooled by his humble talk; he was more than holding his own. Both their styles were built on misdirection—him with unpredictable attacks, her with unpredictable defense and swift retaliation—but that favored him in the main. She couldn't counterattack his openings if she could never tell where they'd be.

It was time to take things up a notch.

She ejected Gambol's magazine, tossed Shroud into the air long enough to load a new one, and in the same motion where she snatched Shroud out of the air, aimed Gambol and fired.

Sun gamely deflected the bullet with his staff—only to stagger to the side as his weapon pulled him down. He looked and saw the end of his staff was encased in stone.

Before he'd recovered his surprise, Blake was upon him, blades flashing one after the other.

Sun separated his staff into nunchaku again, soaking the first two hits in the interim; he dropped the hindered nunchaku, caught Blake's third strike with the other nunchaku's chain, twisted, and yanked Shroud out of Blake's hands.

Blake semblanced away from the follow-up, firing at Sun's foot as she fled. He tried to chase, but ice coated his foot; his foot slid and brought him to one knee. She pounced, using Gambol to sweep away his nunchaku and kicking him in the head.

The blow knocked him to his back and made his Aura shimmer, but he somehow managed to spin about on his back, limbs flailing wildly to keep Blake at bay. She leapt over him instead, chasing after Shroud.

She heard splintering ice as he freed his foot, then a smack against her Aura as he shot her in the back—an attack that took way too much Aura to deflect, no way to do it efficiently without seeing it—but she retrieved her sheath in time to spin and block the next shot.

Sun gamely charged at her despite his seeming disadvantage. She fired Gambol again; a bolt of lightning sailed underneath him as he sprang high, high into the air, hands making some sort of hand sign.

Two golden, shimmering shapes manifested to either side of him; before she could react, both of them had grabbed an arm to pin her in place. He completed his leap foot first, landing a crushing kick as his clones disappeared.

One more trick, then.

Sun was lashing out with a gut-punch, one that would surely level her… if it connected. Instead it punched through a clone of flames.

The combination of her semblance and the Dust payload detonated in his face.

When the smoke cleared, with Blake panting heavily from exertion and pulling from the deepest pockets of her bag of tricks, he was standing there still—a little woozy, trying to clear his head by shaking it, but still standing. "Wow, that really hurt!"

And then, casual as could be, he made the handsign again. Ready for it this time, Blake cut through the two golden shapes that rushed her—but that created an opening when she wasn't looking at him. When she tracked him down, he'd regained both his nunchaku; he smashed one against the floor to break away the stone, leaving him fully re-armed.

Blake shook her head. "You're persistent when you care."

"Was that a compliment?" said Sun. "I can't tell with you sometimes."

Blake made a show of sheathing her weapon. "We can be done, now."

"Phew!" said Sun, wiping his brow. "What a workout! You're kind of a monster, did you know that?"

Blake… might have been the worst fighter on her team, now that she thought about it. Not that she'd say that. Instead, she looked to the side of the room, where Ren and Nora were sitting. "Well? What do you think?"

"He'll do," said Ren.

"Can you explain this part of it?" said Sun. "I get wanting to spar, but when you said that you wanted your friends here for 'evaluation purposes', you kinda lost me."

"Sun," said Blake, putting her sheath on her back, "you're honest, and friendly, and I feel like I can trust you. You remind me a lot of my teammate."

"Sweet, your teammates are awesome," said Sun.

"But I feel bad involving you with this," said Blake. "I had to be sure you're strong enough to do it first, and even then, I hate to bring you in."

"Why?" said Sun.

"Because this is a conspiracy against some of the worst people in Vale. It'll be really dangerous."

"You know what else is dangerous?" said Sun. "Living on Remnant. Having a home in Vacuo. Going to a Huntsman Academy. If I wasn't willing to do stuff because it was dangerous, I wouldn't be, like, alive. If you say you need my help, honestly, what's a little more danger?"

Blake's breath stopped for a moment.

"Oh, yeah," said Nora with a savage grin. "He'll do."

"Yeah," said Blake, turning away to fuss with her weapon. "He'll do."

Ren indulged in a knowing smile in Blake's direction, but then Business Face overtook it. "We have your support, then?" he said to Sun.

"Sure, and I know my team'll be behind us when they get here," Sun said. "The guys and me are tight."

Blake wasn't sure how "tight" Sun could be with his team given that he'd literally abandoned them on another continent, but now wasn't the time to quibble. "Good. We're coming up on something important, and we need another body, especially a Faunus who can take care of himself."

"Then I'm your man," said Sun, smiling and giving a huge thumbs-up.

Blake's mouth was awfully dry.

Why are you letting this get to you?

Blake jerked away, then walked towards Ren and Nora as if to speak with them. Running away was what she was best at, after all. "Nora, could you outline the plan?"

"Sure," said Nora, "but first, I've gotta ask. How do you feel about the White Fang?"

"Those psychos?" said Sun. "The White Fang didn't do anything in Vacuo except recruit, and no one they recruited ever came back. I can't say I've heard anything nice about them anywhere else, either. As far as I can tell, they cause more problems than they solve."

Blake felt great annoyance at this point of view. Good. She hoped she could hold onto that. It would be useful for keeping herself in line.

"Would it surprise you to hear that the White Fang has factions?" said Ren. "Or that we're picking up on fissures between those factions?"

"I never really thought about it. Huh. I guess any big organization would have divisions like that, right? It's normal for people to disagree on what to do."

"This is more than simple disagreement," said Blake as she turned around. "The Vale Branch is up to something heinous, and they're not telling headquarters about it."

"Oh," said Sun. "I see where this is going. Divide and conquer, right?"

"More like cutting out a cancer," said Blake, "and seeing if there's anything left worth saving."

"Pretty morbid," said Sun, though the casual way he scratched at his chin belied his words. "I'm seeing how you'd need backup if you're taking on the Fang all by yourself."

"We're not 'taking them on'," Blake said with a shake of her head. "We're not ready for that yet. The plan is to gather all the information we can while working to peel the support away from the Vale Branch's leadership."

"That's cool, too," said an undeterred Sun. "But if you're not gonna fight, what's the deal with testing me to see if I was up to scratch?"

Nora gave an unsettling smile. "We don't plan to fight, but we might have to if the plan blows up. And if it does, then baddies more dangerous than any two of us will come out to play."

"Fair," said Sun.

"So?" said Blake. "Are you still up for this?"

"Why do you keep asking that?" said Sun. "You're all awesome, the White Fang sucks, and you need my help. Of course I'm up for this."

It was a blessing, Blake had to believe, to be able to think about things so simply. That would never be her. She could endlessly complicate things in her own head, get bogged down in her own doubts and fears and anxieties, knowing she would never be good enough or strong enough to pull this off, to even make a difference…

She wanted to slap her own face.

Because that wasn't her voice talking.

She was getting better at telling, at knowing when it was his voice and not hers that spoke to her. It was getting quieter, she hoped. The other voices, of the people around her telling her she could do these things, were drowning it out.

"So," said Sun as if to detonate the silence Blake's doubts had created, "are you gonna tell me how we're doing this?"

"As long as you keep following," Blake said, "I think I can."

"Here it is!"

Penny looked away from the card game she and Yang were playing. (The card game had proven fascinating. It should have been a matter of simple probability. It was trivial to compute which combinations of cards were strong and how likely it was her hand was stronger than Yang's. She doubted Yang could do the same; her grades in math were respectable for meat people, but not special.

And yet Penny was, in fits and starts, losing.

Something else was going on. Perhaps it was Yang's very ignorance that caused her to play irrationally, and that irrationality somehow worked in her favor. Perhaps there was more to the game that Penny didn't understand. The only way to know for sure was to gather more data and play more games. Happily, that was precisely what Penny wanted to do.)

(This was certainly turning out better than chess. It had taken Yang precisely one game to realize she was hopelessly outmatched and vow to never play again.)

The game could wait, because Tai was waving something in the air. "It's our photo album!" he said.

Yang waved her scroll at him. "We can save all our pictures on our devices now, Dad," said Yang. "I know you're older than Dust, but even you can figure that out."

"I have figured that out," said Tai indignantly, "but there's something different about a physical photo. It's tangible and permanent in a way a few electrons can't be."

Penny found this point of view new and fascinating. Strictly speaking, she didn't think she agreed. Data loss was possible for any medium, but if anything, digital could be preserved better as long as it was stored in multiple devices. A random cosmic ray flipping a bit in a computer's memory could happen at any time, but it was inconceivable that cosmic rays could flip identical bits in disparate devices.

But Penny could see the other side of things, too. Retrieving a digitally stored message depended upon matching file formats and transfer methods and information exchanges and permissions. Theoretically, shifting technologies could make a perfectly preserved image inaccessible. She wasn't as worried about that happening for her own memory, but it did apply to her hypothetical backup. In contrast, a physical photo simply was. Access could not be denied or lost to something one possessed.

Like her own memories—present, but lost.

That digression aside, Penny found herself wanting to see what Tai had. Yang did not share her enthusiasm. "Da-ad," she groaned, "this'll be boring."

"Just because it's boring for you doesn't mean it'll be boring for other people," said Tai. "Penny wants to see these photos, doesn't she?"

"Oh, yes, very much!" Penny reconsidered, then said, "Very very very much!"

"That's the spirit," said Tai. He put the album on the table where Penny and Yang were playing and cracked it open.

It started with photos of Taiyang as a child, growing up in leaps and bounds, but always with some impressive amount of blond hair that matched the color and, in some cases, the volume of Yang's present-day mane.

Despite her professed boredom, Yang was looking at the photos and smiling.

"Now we're getting to the good stuff," said Tai as he turned a page. "This is where I got to Beacon. I was so wound up I took a bunch of pictures of the grounds, but you know all about that." Another page. "Here we are."

These photos were of a girl and a boy the same age (probably?) BX_S was now. They had similar tall, lanky builds, blood-red eyes, and jet-black hair, though his was short and slick and hers was long and wild.

"Qrow and Raven Branwen," sighed Tai. "Of course, they weren't using that name at the time, they called themselves the Taupes."

"Why?" said Penny, even as she assessed this had to be the same Qrow as Yang's "Uncle Qrow".

"It's a long story that doesn't matter for now," said Tai; Yang shot her father an intense look Penny couldn't identify. "What matters is I knew they were trouble the moment I laid eyes on them."

"But you still ended up on a team with them," Yang teased.

Tai smiled back. "Who said I was turned off by trouble?"

The similarities between father and daughter were making themselves very clear to Penny now. She wondered if that applied to her. Was she anything like her creator(s)? Maybe one day she'd know.

Tai turned the page, and the new pictures were very confusing. "In the previous photo, Qrow was wearing the male school uniform," Penny said. "Why is he wearing the female uniform in this photo?"

Because there was Qrow wearing the plaid skirt of the female uniform, one foot up on the seat of a chair to reveal vast stretches of hairy leg, hands on his hips and a smile on his face of a kind Penny had only seen on Yang at her boldest.

Tai started laughing uncontrollably. "Oh, that! The Kilt Incident!"

Penny listened in rapt attention as Tai explained the "practical joke" he'd played on his teammate all those years ago. Even as she listened, Tactical noted the way Yang's eyes lingered on the pictures of Raven.

"…and in the end, Professor Ozpin had to send Qrow back to the dorm to change just to restore order," said Tai. "Ah, good times."

"Wasn't Qrow upset with you about the 'practical joke'?" said Penny.

"Upset? It might have been the biggest favor I ever did him! He got six numbers that day, and I know for a fact he called at least four."

"Do you mean he made four friends?" said Penny.

"...Sure, we'll call them that."

"Funny," said Yang, "he never told me many stories like that."

"Well," said Tai, "he hasn't been around enough to share all his good stories. But we had a bunch, lemme tell you. We were campus legends! Team STRQ. Do they still tell stories about us?"

"Yes," said Penny. "We were told our team might break Team STRQ's record for rookie-year sparring wins."

"Fat chance of that," scoffed Tai. "By the end of the year we were a machine, just mowing down the competition! I always held the middle, Qrow controlled range and messed with people, Raven was an awesome flanker, and Summer…"

Tai frowned and started turning the pages. "You haven't seen Summer yet. She never liked having her picture taken, I think half the ones I got I had to take her by surprise… Ha, there's one!"

He flipped to a new change and pointed at a photo. Penny followed his finger.

Tai was saying something, but Penny wasn't processing it. All available cycles had been thrown into a new top-priority task. A comparison.

Check. Check. Check.

It was undeniable and overwhelming. Only one conclusion was possible as she compared those precious stored images from the airport to the picture before her.

Ruby, Penny's Ruby, Super Friend Ruby, was a dead ringer for Summer Rose.

There were differences, like haircuts and outfits, but trivial ones. The hair color, the shape of the face, bone structure, skin shade, and especially those silver eyes, all of it screamed that the same genes were present in both women.

Could that possibly be…?

More data required.

"Could I see a picture of Ruby?" Penny blurted.

Tai's mouth was open from telling some story Penny hadn't been following. Her request seemed to stun him.

"I'm sorry for interrupting," said Penny, "and for making a difficult request. But Yang has spoken about her sister and how important Ruby was to her. I would like to know what she looked like so I can understand better."

All of which was true, she insisted to Jiminy, even if Penny needing to know at that precise second had other motivations behind it.

"Sure," said Tai in a small and fragile voice. "Yeah, we can look at pictures of Ruby."

"I'm gonna take Zwei on a walk," said Yang as she stood up from the table.

"Yang…" Tai tried to say.

She silenced him with a glare.

He sighed. "Have fun."

She nodded curtly and left. "I'm sorry," Penny called after her. The only answer was the opening and shutting of the front door. "I'm sorry to you, too," Penny said to Tai.

"It's fine," said Tai. "You've been to the cliffs. You know how we feel, what Ruby means to us." He flipped through a bunch of pages, then showed where he landed. "There."

"She's adorable," Penny said.

"All babies are cute," Tai said, "but, honestly, she must have been the cutest baby Remnant's ever seen."

Penny would never have enough data to agree to that premise in good faith, but other things were more confusing than typical human hyperbole. "These pictures are in black and white."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot that we did that," Tai said. "Almost all our pictures were, definitely all the ones we shared outside the family, but I'm sure we took a few… That's the one, the four-year-old picture."

Pages flipped again. A new photo came into view. The child in the picture was much less baby and much more very small person, but that was all tangential. Incidental. Penny's face snapped instead to the eyes.

Silver eyes.

If Penny had needed to breathe, she thought she might be hyperventilating.

Even not knowing how human bodies aged, exactly, Penny instantly matched the eyes and hair in that baby picture with the eyes and hair of Summer Rose… and further matched them with the eyes and hair of Super Friend Ruby.

Penny had tanked some truly ferocious blows in her time, but this one, non-physical though it might have been, hit harder than any of them. Every subroutine was enlisted in trying to process the enormity of this realization, and none of them were up to the task.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"It's okay," said Tai. "She was surrounded by love as long as she lived."

He looked to say more, but Penny hiccupped, apologized, hiccupped again, rushed to Tai's side for a hug which he weakly reciprocated, hiccupped again, apologized again…

Because however sorry she was for how Tai felt, she was much more sorry for not saying something else to Tai, something Jiminy demanded she say but that she absolutely could not.

That beautiful, heart-rending memorial was in error. Ruby Rose had not been killed by a grimm that night eleven years ago. She had been stolen.

Penny tried to cry, couldn't do it, and hiccupped like she was having a seizure instead. Emotion Signifying needed to do something, and decided that was as close as it could get to sobbing.

Something monstrous had happened and Penny couldn't even tell the people it had ruined. A father who shut down to stop feeling pain, a sister living through eleven years of anxiety and insomnia, and Penny couldn't say anything.

She gave her biggest hiccup ever.

Next time: Extra (non-)Credit