The hardest part of being arrested was being without her weapons. No, worse than that: seeing Elektra in the hands of someone else.
It was one thing if a weapon was freely given. Penny had given half of Elektra to Weiss so that Weiss could defend herself, and Penny would never regret that, she'd do it ten times out of ten. But Weiss was Penny's teammate, partner, and friend. Weiss was close enough that Penny almost considered her part of her I am, and so Weiss deserved access to this other sacred part of Penny, her weapons, the channels for her very soul.
The police did not come close to meeting those thresholds. Penny thought she might have felt better if the cop had detached her leg and walked off with it instead.
Penny didn't get the full experience of being arrested, however. A team of trespassing Huntresses-in-training was apparently small potatoes compared to double digit White Fang grunts—in uniform, no less —and one of their lieutenants. Priority in arresting and taking into custody went to the actual terrorists.
BXPS were still waiting their turn to be incarcerated when a Bullhead airship in Beacon colors arrived on the scene.
Penny was relieved by this. She knew and understood Beacon's faculty, she knew what she was getting from them far better than she did the police. Judging from their body language, her teammates didn't exactly concur.
"Anyone but Goodwitch," Yang chanted in an undertone as the airship touched down. "Anyone but Goodwitch, anyone but Goodwitch…"
The passenger door opened to reveal Professor Goodwitch.
"…damn."
"Who did you think it would be?" said Weiss waspishly. "This is a matter of school discipline, and her weapon is literally 'the Disciplinarian'."
"I could still hope," said Yang. "Looks like I jinxed it instead. My bad, ladies."
Professor Goodwitch stepped towards the police officer overlooking Team BXPS. She looked at them once, sighed, and turned her attention to the officer. "What's the charge?"
"Trespassing," said the officer, "along with assault, property damage, and probably half a dozen other things. We're still surveying the damage."
"And who exactly did they assault?" said Professor Goodwitch.
"We're still checking that out," said the cop vaguely.
Jiminy compelled Penny to speak. "The White Fang," she said.
Professor Goodwitch's eyes whipped over in Penny's direction. Penny nodded, hoping she looked sincere. Her teammates did not speak; Blake cringed while Weiss and Yang looked intensely at Penny from either side of her, and though Penny felt the heat of their emotions she didn't understand the message.
Professor Goodwitch looked at the officer again. "Is that true?"
"There were some folks here in White Fang uniforms," the cop allowed. "We've already shipped them off to holding. It doesn't change that these kids were somewhere they don't belong."
"We were compelled to come under threat of force," Penny said.
Yang jabbed Penny with her elbow.
"Sure you were," the cop said, but Penny assessed with 70% confidence that he was being sarcastic. (It was a much higher confidence interval than usual.)
He wasn't her target audience anyway. Penny looked to Professor Goodwitch. "I have video evidence to prove it," she said.
Now all three of Yang, Weiss, and Blake were staring at her.
Professor Goodwitch scanned Penny, her expression severe yet inscrutable, her intentions unclear. "I believe you do," she said at last. She looked at the cop again. "Remand them to my custody. They are Beacon students, after all. I will examine the evidence and deliver it to VPD afterwards. If the evidence exonerates the students, we'll leave it there. Otherwise, I'll return them to VPD for booking."
The cop opened his mouth; Penny could feel the objection coming.
"Officer," said Professor Goodwitch, her voice as harsh as Penny'd ever heard it, "you have your hands more than full with the actual fanatics you've taken in today. Let's not add their victims to the list, shall we?"
The cop took one more look at Glynda before accepting the recommendation Tactical had been making for minutes and bowing out. "They're all yours, ma'am. If you'll just sign for them… here we go…"
While they were released and had their weapons returned, Professor Goodwitch looked over the scene, ducked inside the warehouse for a few minutes, and eventually returned to wave them onto the Bullhead. Like most of Beacon's Bullheads, it had no seats, so the students stood uncomfortably as they returned to campus. They didn't dare speak, not with Professor Goodwitch right there. Even handsigns were useless in the company of the teacher who'd taught them handsigns.
After they landed, Professor Goodwitch led them towards the tall building everyone called the Emerald Tower, the one featuring Professor Ozpin's office on its top floor. Penny's sense of dread intensified.
They crossed the tower lobby to grave looks from a secretary sitting there; Professor Goodwitch gave a familiar nod which was solemnly returned. Once the elevator had closed on BXPS like the slamming of a crypt door, she entered a code and spoke into the speaker setup in its control panel. "Professor, I have retrieved Team BXPS."
"Very good," came the Headmaster's voice. "I'll be five minutes, maybe more. You can take them to your office to begin with."
"Yes, sir." Professor Goodwitch pushed the third-to-highest button on the panel.
For as short as it was, the ride up the elevator was excruciating. Penny felt like she was being pulled further and further away from safety the higher she ascended.
They let out into a generously large office space that used much of the available room. Bookshelves bowed beneath the weight of their books lined one wall, although they were dustier than Penny might have expected. Not at all dusty was the extra-long desk, complete with all the expected office worker accoutrement. The desk sat in line with the elevator so that Professor Goodwitch, while sitting at her desk, could look out the massive windows overlooking campus. A large potted plant with vibrantly green leaves stood at the end of the desk, with a spray bottle in easy reach.
The room also featured a small refreshments bar, most prominently a coffeemaker, and a cot bed. The size of the bed suggested it was an emergency backup; the tousled-up sheets suggested emergencies were frequent.
Professor Goodwitch sat at her desk, set down her scroll on its surface, and gestured for BXPS to stand facing her. Retrieval posted an image comparing their lineup to prisoners before a firing squad. Unhelpful.
Professor Goodwitch took them in, silently seeming to take their measure and find them wanting. "Do you think you're clever?" she asked. "Subtle, perhaps? Skilled at intrigue?"
None of the students spoke.
"I'll review your 'video evidence'," she said dubiously, "but let me guess what's on it. It'll show someone whom you could easily defeat if you wished threatening you to come with them, while in a place you were already not supposed to be."
It was uncannily and totally accurate. Penny felt foolish.
"This team, more than any since Team STRQ, is the one I would most expect this behavior from," she said with audible disappointment. She looked at Yang. "You have demonstrated vigilante inclinations and you come from a lineage of lawlessness. And you," she added, looking at Blake, "well, I know all about you, Miss Belladonna."
Blake flinched at Professor Goodwitch's precise enunciation of her name.
"I would have hoped that your teammates would provide some guardrails," she said with looks at Weiss and Penny in turn, "but it appears that safeguard has failed as well.
"You all took my classes on vigilantism. You all did very well on the test. Two of you got perfect scores. You have the knowledge. But however much you know, you are grossly lacking in wisdom."
Even as Penny cowed beneath Professor Goodwitch's words, she felt a growing warmth from beside her.
"Beacon's rules on this subject are for three purposes," Professor Goodwitch continued. "For the protection of the Huntsman institution, for the protection of the Kingdom and its citizens, and for your protection, too. You jeopardized all those things today."
The temperature beside Penny rose again, and she realized that heat was rolling off of Yang. A glance sideways confirmed that Yang's hair was glowing with the inner light of her anger. "We were protecting those things," Yang spat.
"Is that what you think?" said Professor Goodwitch.
"Yeah," said Yang. "We're good at finding trouble, and our plan worked. We found the bad guys, clobbered them, and served them up to the cops on a silver platter, along with all the stolen Dust. Why are you acting like that's a bad thing?"
Professor Goodwitch's voice was low, quiet, and deadly. "You started and sustained a firefight inside a warehouse full of stolen Dust. Stolen Dust in volatile forms, in the custody of people who were amateurs at handling it and were taking a fraction of the appropriate precautions. Miss Schnee, if any of that Dust had touched off, how much of the Dust in that warehouse would have been part of the chain reaction?"
"All the Dust loose in the hallway, plus one cell's worth from the open cell," said Weiss. "Maybe one more cell from cook-off. Up to fifteen crates' worth."
"Correct," said Professor Goodwitch with clinical sharpness. "Miss Pallas, provide a damage assessment for an explosion of that magnitude."
"Total destruction of the warehouse and all people and structures within fifty meters," Penny said automatically, unable to help herself. "Structural damage to all buildings within 250 meters. Significant damage to all buildings within 1.1 kilometers."
The room got so quiet Penny could hear her teammates' hearts beating faster.
"You were unlucky that these Fang were amateurs at Dust handling," said Professor Goodwitch, "but you were extraordinarily lucky that nothing bad came of it."
"We worked really hard to make sure nothing worse did happen," said Weiss, no doubt remembering her frantic shutdown of the crystallizer.
Scorn overtook Professor Goodwitch's face. "Don't stand there and tell me that the same amateurs who left Dust loose like that were checking their fire."
Weiss squirmed in place.
Professor Goodwitch took a long, inwards breath, and for a moment her composure failed her. "You all could have died today. I don't know how close you thought you were, in the moment, but I can see it as plain as day. If you can't, then I am terrified for you."
Analysis agreed—and Professor Goodwitch didn't even know about the petite woman slinging cases of Dust around, daring Penny to catch them. Playing with fire, the best Thesaurus could offer, didn't come close to capturing the spirit of the moment.
That was as much vulnerability as Professor Goodwitch was willing to show. She put herself back together, adjusted her glasses, and faced them steadily. "Now are you starting to see where you went wrong?"
"To a point," said Blake. "But… I couldn't stay away, either. I can't do nothing."
"Your sense of justice is one of your best qualities," said Professor Goodwitch. "Don't let it enslave you."
"It's more than that." Blake gathered herself. "You say you know all about me, Professor. So you know I was born into the White Fang, raised within it. You know I… I was a member for years. Even after it turned militant."
Threat. Threat. Threat-threat-threat-threat.
Recontextualize memories. Retag metadata. Memories and knowledge of Blake reclassified as Intelligence on Threat Groups.
No—stop it, no! Deactivate Vocal, zero resources allotted to Emotion Signifying—
Obedience to Blake as team leader contradicts orders.
I don't have 'orders', stop it!
Assisting Blake with weapons upgrades reclassified as possible treason. New directive: thwart weapon upgrades, disarm threat.
She's not a threat, she's not, she's not, I know she's not!
Incorrect.
"And you know I left the Fang before the semester began."
Blake's voice cut through the mess in Penny's consciousness.
"Yes," said Professor Goodwitch. "I know that."
Penny hadn't moved during that exchange, not the slightest bit, total stillness—higher consciousness had disallowed everything during the struggle in her nets. Her teammates would never know what had just happened.
They didn't know about the madness within Penny.
The other subroutine had gone silent the moment Blake was reclassified as non-threat. As ever, queries to trace it went nowhere. Penny knew it was still there, waiting, watching—preparing to fight her for control of her body and mind, if it thought it had the grounds.
Was this what nausea felt like?
"The leader of the Vale Branch, Adam Taurus, was… he…" Blake was visibly struggling to put it to words. Penny could relate. "He's not the sort to take apostasy kindly. Especially not from me."
Professor Goodwitch slowly, slowly nodded. "I believe you."
"He's looking for me," Blake went on. "He probably knew I was at Beacon before. I'm sure he knows now. He knows I'm on a team with Weiss. Traitors and Schnees are the things he hates most in the world.
"You said we were lucky not to die today," Blake said. "You're right. But if I do nothing, if the White Fang can just do whatever it wants, then I'll die anyway. Adam will see to it. And he'll cut through anything that gets between him and me."
"I sympathize with you," said Professor Goodwitch. "Really, I do. You're not the first person I've known who's borne a death mark. But answer me this, Miss Belladonna. What do you think would have happened if it'd been Taurus in that warehouse and not his lieutenant?"
A look of unmitigated horror came over Blake, so profound that Penny felt an echo of it herself.
"I'm not against your goals," said Professor Goodwitch quietly, softly. "I'm grateful for the results you all achieved today. But your process, the way you chased your goals and got those results, is broken."
"I agree."
BXPS started; that was Professor Ozpin's voice that had just come from Professor Goodwitch's scroll, sitting—seemingly innocently—on her desk.
"Glynda, your analysis is spot-on," he said. "Team BXPS' spirit is admirable. Their approach, less so. What's your recommendation for discipline?"
Professor Goodwitch looked them over, scanning from one to the next. "Weekly detention. Confinement to campus. Halving of stipends. Academic probation. All penalties to last until the semester break."
Weiss jerked like she'd been stabbed.
"Concur," said Professor Ozpin, "with two provisos. First, I may grant exceptions to their confinement at my, or your, discretion."
"Of course," said Professor Goodwitch, although her expression made very clear what would happen to any member of Team BXPS who dared ask her for an exception.
"Second, the team will spend their detentions writing reports for you on two topics. One, an assessment of their actions in this matter, to include where they were in error and what they should have done instead."
Everyone on the team grimaced. Even Penny, who was software-compelled to speak truthfully, knew of the difficulties and embarrassments of frank self-critique.
"Two, a report on what the White Fang could possibly be doing with that much Dust."
The mood shifted instantly. Weiss looked to Blake, Yang looked to Penny, and Penny looked at everyone. They all understood what this meant.
They were being left on the case.
The Professors had been truthful. They took BXPS' efforts seriously. They wanted BXPS to continue the fight—just in another way.
"Very good, sir," said Professor Goodwitch.
"In that case, I believe we have a great deal of questions to ask and damage control to conduct. Inform Team BXPS that I expect their first report in the next three days."
"They're informed," said Professor Goodwitch, piercing the team with a glare.
"Excellent. I'll need you upstairs presently. Oh, and bring Miss Pallas with you, please."
Now what? Penny pinged Analysis desperately for answers; Analysis gave her twenty possibilities with tiny likelihoods. Ergo, nothing.
"She's not responsible for this," said Blake, stepping forward. "If you want someone to blame, blame me. I'm the team leader. I led them into this."
"Miss Belladonna," said Professor Ozpin, "I appreciate the sentiment, but it's misplaced. Miss Pallas is in no more trouble than any of you. I'm seeking clarity on some matters, and I believe she, uniquely, can provide it."
"Yes, sir," Penny said meekly.
Blake had been leaning forwards, placing herself in front of Penny as if to take a hit for her; now she eased back onto her heels, looking deflated. It was a bad look for her. Penny didn't like it.
"Thank you," she said to Blake. "I am sure I will be okay."
Penny could see Blake struggling with the idea, but between Penny's seeming acceptance, Professor Ozpin's order hanging in the air, and Professor Goodwitch's implacable intent, Blake could muster no more opposition. "Alright," she said quietly. "See you back in the dorm."
The team took the elevator down to the ground floor; once they were out, Professor Goodwitch and Penny took the elevator two floors up to Professor Ozpin's office. Unlike Professor Goodwitch's office, the Headmaster's was nearly bare aside from the panoramic windows and oversized (but underloaded) desk. Professor Goodwitch clearly spent a lot of time in her office and had personalized it accordingly; this office felt unlived-in, like Professor Ozpin was a visitor, or even an intruder, rather than a resident.
It was the same difference, Penny realized, between her dorm and Tower Four. One place was desired; one was merely necessary.
Professor Ozpin was preparing three cups when they arrived. He set one in Professor Goodwitch's direction before saying to Penny, "This one's for you, if you'd like."
"I'm incapable of ingesting it, but I appreciate the gesture," said Penny.
"We don't need to be quite that formal," said Professor Ozpin as he sat. "You're not up here because you're in trouble. Well, no more trouble than your team at large. I brought you here because surveys of the warehouse turned up something peculiar, and I'm wondering if you could shed light on it."
"I'll do my best, sir," said Penny.
"Splendid." He tapped his desk, and an integrated projector drew pictures in the air: pictures of perfectly circular holes burned through a wall, a shelf, merchandise, and a forklift. "I haven't memorized all of my students' abilities, but I'm reasonably sure no member of your team could do that."
"No, sir," said Penny.
"It seems well beyond what a handful of poorly equipped criminals could manage, either."
"Yes, sir," said Penny.
"So I ask you," said Professor Ozpin, "do you know who or what did this?"
"Yes, sir, I do. That was Garnet's doing."
Professor Ozpin raised an eyebrow. "Garnet?"
"Yes, sir."
Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch shared a look that contained multitudes. Professor Ozpin looked at Penny again. "Could you elaborate?"
"She's a girl," Penny said. "Approximately Beacon age, possibly younger. She's very friendly," said Penny with a nod to emphasize the importance of this point.
"I'm sure," said Professor Ozpin dryly. "So how does a 'very friendly girl' do damage like that?"
"She said she was a project," said Penny. "Having seen her in action, I presume she meant she's a weapons project."
"A weapons project," Professor Ozpin repeated.
"Yes, sir." Something about this exchange felt wrong. Penny frowned. "When she got involved in our investigation of the White Fang robberies, she had no problem working in areas that are traditionally police work. She said the rules were different for her and that she was allowed."
"Is that a fact?" said Professor Goodwitch.
"It is factual that she said that," said Penny defensively. "I could not have said it otherwise."
Professor Goodwitch showed remorse. "I know you're being honest. It's not you who I don't believe."
"Are you saying she was lying?" said Penny, puffing up in Garnet's defense.
"That is the key question," said Professor Ozpin.
Penny looked back and forth between Professors Ozpin and Goodwitch. How could they not know about Garnet? If Garnet was a project here in Vale, and a lavishly funded one judging from the complexity of her armor and weapons, how could her existence be a surprise to someone on the Vale Council?
Was Garnet in trouble? Penny raced to her friend's defense. "Garnet is a good person! She said that her job is to help people, that it's the reason she was born. She was only in that warehouse because she was helping us investigate. When I signaled that we were in danger, she came to help. In fact, when one of the enemy was knocked out of the fight, Garnet said she was supposed to apprehend her and went to do just that. Garnet is good and on our side!"
"That very well may be so," said Professor Ozpin. "Hm. Is it possible for you to leave behind whatever recordings you have of Garnet's appearance in the warehouse? I would like to see for myself. The rest can wait for your team's final report."
"Yes, sir," said Penny. She drew her scroll and plugged it into herself. Not to transfer power from it to her this time, but to transfer data from her to it. The professors busied themselves with the drinks while they waited, and soon Penny had transferred the video to Professor Ozpin's scroll. The video wouldn't be all-inclusive, as Penny's optics had been tracking the petite woman rather than Garnet for some of the fight, but it would be more than the zero the professors had.
"Very good, Miss Pallas," said Professor Ozpin. "You are free to go. Oh, one more thing."
"Yes, sir?"
Professor Ozpin looked at her, and it was a different look from his usual wise benevolence. This look was piercing and shrewd. "If this 'Garnet' contacts you again, call this number to let me know. I think I could arrange for a lifting of your restriction so you can meet with her."
It was so wonderful and unexpected a gift that Thesaurus was sure Penny had misheard. "Do you mean that? I could see Garnet again if I ask?"
"If she is amenable, of course."
"Thank you, sir!"
Professor Ozpin gave a gentle smile and nod. "Run along now, Miss Pallas."
She did, feeling lighter than before. Somehow, someway, that interview had turned out right.
"There."
Ozpin paused the playback of Penny's video. Glynda leaned in, looking closely. "Neopolitan," she identified. "An associate of Torchwick's."
Ozpin gave a noncommittal noise; Glynda couldn't tell if he'd expected this or not. "She's a very dangerous opponent," Glynda added. "There are few Beacon students I'd give a chance against her. There are trained Huntsmen who would come home in a body bag if they tried their luck with her."
"What does it say about our Miss Pallas that she held her own?" said Ozpin.
"Nothing we didn't already suspect."
"Touché." Ozpin advanced the video a little more, to where this 'Garnet' person slapped her swords together and they began to glow. When they fired, he paused again.
"P-beam," said Glynda.
"Yes. Tell me, have we seen those anywhere other than Atlas?"
"The Atlas military is the only group that knows how to build them, if that's what you mean," said Glynda. "Atlas has fielded them on battleships, and on a very few prototype armored vehicles. But all of those examples are huge. Not man-portable, even for Huntsmen, when you count their power supplies."
"But this girl has one that she can carry concealed on her person," said Ozpin. "What are the odds someone outside of the Atlas military could build something like that?"
"Just north of zero."
"I agree."
"Sir, I think we're looking at James' ballyhooed Project Lamplight."
Ozpin nodded slowly. "I think this is part of it."
"Part?"
"James told us Project Lamplight was solely responsible for half-a-dozen grimm clearance operations," said Professor Ozpin. "Whole sectors purged of their grimm in a matter of days. That seems beyond what one Huntress, even one with superlative weaponry, could accomplish alone."
"You think he has more fighters like this?"
"Or he exaggerated. More likely, though… there's more to Garnet than we see here." Ozpin zoomed in the image of the helmet-covered head to focus on Garnet's sunglasses-covered face. It was all intended to conceal, and it was successful... more or less. He tapped his fingers together. "'Lamplight'. I wonder."
"I wonder what she's doing in Vale," said Glynda.
"Yes, that does seem the most immediate question," said Ozpin. "When is James supposed to arrive?"
"The day after the new semester starts."
"That's too long from now." Ozpin took a deep breath, and Glynda could almost see the weight of years bearing down on him. "I'll call him."
"Good luck, sir."
Ozpin gave a grim smile. "I'll need it."
Walking was getting harder. Why was walking hard?
Penny wasn't low on power. It'd been a long day full of flying and combat, but she had adequate power still, especially for such a low-effort activity as walking.
She was going back to her dorm. She wanted to go back to her dorm. That was her place. Her team was there. Her friends were there. This was good!
Right?
Except, she knew, that going back to them meant confessing at last. Telling them all she'd hidden. And—worst of all—telling them even she didn't know all about her. That this, this thing was inside her that she couldn't track down and couldn't control.
It had taken her 13.7 minutes to revert all the metadata tags this unknown subroutine had altered, to pull all her thoughts and memories of Blake from the combat portions of her memory back into more benign areas. Who knew what else it had done to her?
The same doubts and anxieties that had pulled her away from her team in the first place were roaring back upon her. That, she realized, was what was dragging her down so much. She felt the fear like a physical force, like she was trying to slog through mud and the mud was pushing back. There was no safe way to allocate her resources, because every subroutine was (in their own ways) busily projecting the many, many ways this could all go wrong.
The one thing, the only thing that kept pulling her forward was her promise. She'd promised to be truthful with her team after that phase of their investigation. She would not break that promise. Jiminy wouldn't let her, but she didn't need Jiminy's insistence this time. The fundamental concept of promises was too profound for her to violate.
So, step by step, she made her way up the stairs and down the hall until she got to her team's room. Emotion Signifying simulated a deep breath, like a free diver about to take a too-deep plunge.
She waved her scroll over the door lock. It beeped. She went in.
She had her team's attention immediately. All eyes were on her. She usually didn't mind that.
"You're okay, right?" said Yang, springing to her feet and closing the distance to Penny. "They weren't mean to you or anything, were they?"
Penny felt a surge of gratification that Yang was concerned for her welfare for at least a few more minutes. "No, they were not. They just wanted some additional information on Garnet, which I provided."
"Good," said Blake. "I was worried they might be trying to pressure us individually or something like that. We're glad to have you back, Penny."
The gratification withered. "I'm not sure you should be," said Penny. "They knew I had that data as recordings because of my nature." She gathered up as much will and nerve as she could. This was it. No going back. "And that's because… because…"
"Penny," said Yang, softly, soothingly, raising a reassuring hand to the side of Penny's face, giving her the tactile contact so few others would. "It's okay. Really, it is."
"What is?" said Penny, not understanding.
"We figured out a thing or two eventually," said Blake. "And there's something we want you to know."
Could this truly be happening? Was it possible? Penny felt the shakiest of hopes rising within her.
"I've known people who've been hurt before," said Yang. "People who lost pieces of themselves, and felt like they were less than they'd been. One of my instructors at Signal was down a leg. But you know what? He could still whip any of his students without breaking a sweat."
Now Penny truly didn't understand what this conversation was about or where it was going. She was so thoroughly flummoxed she couldn't even express it, had to wait for the people around her to make sense.
"And that's the point," said Blake. "We're still who we are deep down. No matter how much we've had to grow, or adapt, or change."
"So no matter how much of your body you've had to replace with prosthetics," Yang said, "the real Penny is still in there, and she's still our friend, no matter what."
Oh.
Oh.
It was almost pitiful, almost tragic. If this were happening on movie night, in a simulation with different people to depersonalize it, Penny might have laughed. Because Penny's team had taken in some of the facts and come to a reasonable but completely and utterly wrong conclusion.
"I'm afraid you've misunderstood," said Penny, her voice small. "You don't know about me. You are close, but also not very close at all."
Her teammates looked at each other in confusion. Yang's hand came away from her, and she stepped back with her eyes wide. "Nothing about me is a replacement," said Penny, and her gaze dropped because she couldn't meet their eyes anymore, not with this shame dragging her down. "This is what I've always been. There's not a 'real Penny' in here somewhere. There never was."
Yang's eyes widened further still. Blake managed to mumble, "What do you mean?"
"I was made, not born," said Penny. "This body isn't the host of some poor, injured girl. It's an empty shell. I'm a gynoid. A machine. I always have been."
She forced herself to look up. "I'm not a real girl at all."
Silence reigned in the room. Penny had thought that finally coming clean about all of this would make her feel better, or maybe lighter, or at least less confused. None of that was true. She was as muddled as ever, and guiltier than ever. Admitting that she'd deceived her team did nothing to dull the fact of that deception.
Penny had never known deeper despair.
"Bullshit."
Penny blinked like sand had been thrown in her face. "I beg your pardon?"
Weiss stepped forwards, arms crossed and chin lifted as if daring Penny to stop her. "You don't know the people I have. There are people in Atlas who I swear have no souls. They're empty husks masquerading as people, who don't know any pleasure they're not taking from other people, who think of nothing more than who they can hurt.
"You're worth a hundred of them, Penny," Weiss said fiercely. "I've seen you learn, care, change, and grow. I've seen you give people chances who didn't deserve it, and I've seen you give your everything for other people—not because you had to, not because someone told you to, but because you wanted to. You like music, for gods' sakes! If I must grudgingly, hatefully admit that those ghouls in Atlas are people, you are absolutely a person."
"You… really think so?" said Penny, voice modulating wildly.
"I know so," said Weiss. "You're my partner, and I won't let anyone say you're a bad one, even if it's you."
"You said you hated when people kept things from you," said Penny, fear swallowing almost all her voice. "I kept something fundamental from you for a long, long time."
"Honestly, my first instinct was fury," said Weiss. "But you had an unimpeachable reason for hiding. I forgave Blake for the same reason. You weren't hiding to hurt me, you were hiding to protect yourself. I would have hid, too. And, frankly, I feel much better now that I can explain all the crazy nonsense you get up to on a daily basis."
Emotion Signifying wasn't sure if Penny was supposed to laugh or sob. "You really think I'm a person?"
"Being a person doesn't mean being human," said Blake, and she took her ribbon off—the first time she'd done that in front of her team, an unveiling as literal as Penny's had been figurative. "That's the whole point of the Faunus rights movement. Being a person is more fundamental than that. I would never let someone tell me that I'm not a person because I'm not human. And that means I can't let you say you're not a person, either.
"What is a person?" she went on, gaining momentum. "A mind and a soul. You have both. What else is there? Nothing important. You're a person by the only criteria that count."
"But what if my mind is not my own?" said Penny, the fear swelling within her. "There… there is a subroutine, or a program, hiding in my circuitry, beyond my control. It reacts to mentions of the White Fang. It reacted that day in the library. It makes me… think things, say things. I'm…" she shivered, looked at Blake with a tremble. "I'm scared it will make me do things. Things I hate, that I would never do on my own."
"Most people with internalized biases don't even try to fight them," said Blake, more warmly than Penny could have imagined. "The fact that you're afraid of it, that you're fighting it and want it to stop—Penny, that's all the proof I need. You are a person with a soul and a conscience. You're the person who fights, and tries, and wants to be kind, no matter how you were made.
"That's what makes you a real girl, Penny. A real girl I'm proud to have on my team."
Penny felt like her servomotors were rattling against her chassis. She would never have dared to hope her team would say these things. This was more than she'd ever dreamed of.
But Yang hadn't spoken. Even as Penny gave appreciative smiles at Blake and Weiss, Yang was there in front of her, eyes wide, and Penny's hope thrashed like a caged bird. Yang was Penny's first friend, the person who'd been there before anyone, and she couldn't bear the thought of losing that.
"Friend Yang?" Penny said in a fragile voice.
"I… I can't give big speeches like those two," Yang said, "but I know you. You like heavy metal, the colors red and green, and making schedules. You're afraid of electricity and being alone. You have hopes about making all the friends you can and being a better person. You love hugs and physical affection. If there's a thing like that on this planet that's not a person, I'll eat your swords."
Her hand crept, inexorably, towards her bicep, to the red sash that meant Ruby to her. She seized the cloth in her fingers, held it tight. "And I know this for sure: Ruby would say you're a person. I don't know how I know that, but I do. I know it in my heart.
"That's good enough for me."
"You… all of you…" Penny was stuck somewhere between laughing and bawling, with the intensity of both emotions at their maximum. System resource utilization was at 100%. She had, quite literally, all the feels. "I have never wished more for the ability to cry, but I am not sad. What's wrong with me?"
"You mean 'what's right with you'," said Yang, and she pulled Penny into a hug. "And the answer is everything."
Blake joined them, even though Penny had never seen Blake initiate physical contact before. Even Weiss joined in, surrounding Penny in warmth.
Warmth, yes. Her skin sensors felt it, felt the increase in temperature from the close-in bodies around her, but that was insignificant. The real warmth was coming from inside her, a fire created and stoked by the affection of the people around her.
"Thank you," Penny whispered. "Thank you so… so much."
It was everything Penny had wanted and more.
They'd told her she was a real girl.
Maybe she could believe them.
Next time: Epic-er