Now that she no longer had to try to do it as much, Penny could say objectively that she was bad at blending in.
It had been true all along despite her best efforts. While her team had never quite figured out that she was a gynoid until she told them, they had correctly tagged her as unusual and standing out. For this new mission set, being able to look normal, or being able to hide if one could not, was necessary, and Penny could do neither.
On the other hand, she had special features none of her teammates could match, and that gave her different roles to play for which she was irreplaceable.
She could remember having nearly the same train of thought during their first White Fang investigation. It had brought her little comfort, then, as being useful was no substitute for acceptance as a person. Now that she had that acceptance, she was free to take satisfaction in her utility, and oh did she!
Her most common role was mobile overwatch. She would fly high overhead in lazy circles wherever her friends were operating. From there she offered another set of eyes on the situation and the promise of quick evacuation in a pinch.
Blake had been very insistent on this point. "Our priority is to stay out of trouble," she'd said again and again. "Even if we think we could win the fight, we're in enemy territory every trip. We don't know who else might be lurking, or what reinforcements they might call, or even what civilians might get caught in the crossfire if we engage. At the first sign of trouble, bail. If you don't think you can get away on your own, call in Penny."
Penny was giving her friends something no one else could provide. It made her feel very warm. The knowledge that they were doing real Huntress work was even more gratifying.
It was so gratifying, in fact, that Penny began to push the limits of her battery life. Her endurance was finite, after all, and flight was by far her most energy-intensive feature. A long day's flying could restrict her to the dorm room overnight to recharge, or even push her to Tower Four to use the higher capacity charging station there. At least on those occasions she could catch up a little bit on periodic maintenance with Turchina. She was still behind, overall, even without reckoning with the "as needed" menu in Turchina's memory.
Penny's overwatch wasn't the only precaution the group took. They continued to mix up who they sent to do recon, with Blake going less frequently and Yang taking her place in the rotation. Some things Blake had to go see for herself, but more commonly she was writing letters and reading the replies she got. She would also disappear into the Emerald Tower for hours at a time.
Penny found it all tremendously exciting. Unfortunately, it wasn't exciting enough to make her forget the things she'd seen during her trip to Patch. There were times she almost couldn't help but think about the two Rubys. The worst times were in the small hours of the morning when Yang would wake up in sweats or panics, never truly coherent but always truly distressed. At times like that, Penny wondered if sharing her discovery might give Yang the peace of mind she so clearly needed… or if it would make things worse.
It might have helped to talk about this with Super Friend Ruby, but there continued to be no word from her. It was getting to be so long that Penny wondered if she should demote Ruby from Super Friend down to Friend.
She only considered it for 1.8 seconds, but that was an awfully long and meaningful 1.8 seconds.
With them being so busy, the last days before the end of break passed with extraordinary swiftness, and students began to trickle back to campus. Penny wondered what effects, if any, their conspiracy was having, but Blake said she couldn't be sure, and of course the Emerald Tower said nothing.
"I wonder if it would help if I tried to talk to Professor Ozpin," said Penny.
"Why would it?" said Blake.
"He knew my nature first of all," Penny said. "He's the one who gave me sanctuary in Tower Four. He has exhibited unusual trust in me."
"You've got it backwards," said Blake. "He's kept your secrets, but he hasn't given you any of his."
"…Oh. You're right. I feel very foolish for thinking what I did."
"Trust is a difficult thing to learn," said Blake. She gestured towards her stacks of correspondence. "That's what all of this is about, really. Trust. How much do people trust Adam when he clearly isn't trusting them or Sienna? How much do they trust that what he's doing will really make their lives better? What are they willing to risk on the basis of that trust?
"And the hard part is, I don't have much to offer to help people trust me. I'm doing a good job making people doubt Adam, I can tell from the responses I'm getting, but I don't have anything to take his place. My credibility as a Faunus took a hit when I went to Beacon," she added ruefully.
"There are Faunus Huntsmen," objected Penny.
"Sure. But Huntsmen mostly do anti-grimm work. That may help everyone, but it's not visible, and it's not specific. The grimm hurt us, and Huntsmen help with that, but bigots and the police hurt us, too, and Huntsmen don't help with that. Most Faunus think of Huntsmen as net neutrals at best."
It was all very challenging for Penny to think about, although a simpler but no less vexing problem also preoccupied her. "What are we going to do when classes start again?" she asked. "I know how much time we spent directly in classes and studying for classes, and that left a certain amount of free time per week. The amount of time we spend on this campaign exceeds that free time. When classes start again, we will have to start losing either study time or campaign time, and I see no way to reconcile the two."
"You don't think Ozpin will count saving the world as extra credit?" said Just Sun.
"Professor Ozpin might," said Yang, "but Professor Goodwitch won't."
"We'll work through that the day before classes start," said Blake. "I'll have another conversation with the headmaster before then, and we can talk about it with the full team when we're all here."
"Yes, ma'am," said Penny with an attempt at a salute. "And may I just say, I think you are rounding into a leader nicely!"
Blake shook as if she'd just grabbed raw Lightning Dust. "You think so?"
"I am certain of it," said Penny.
"Oh," said Blake, but Penny recognized this kind of 'oh'. It was the kind a person made when they had no idea what else to say. Penny made it routinely. She found it reassuring that other people made it, too.
Ruby's eyes ached.
They sometimes did after long days of training, especially training with her mentor like she had today. She hoped that whatever was on her schedule for the rest of the day, she didn't have to read or stare at a screen or manipulate very small things that demanded close attention.
Come to think of it, that wiped out most of what she did here at Home Base.
She was rubbing her eyelids and not paying attention when she bumped headfirst into something that wasn't supposed to be there. She had too much balance and Aura to fall down, but she did make a startled leap backwards. "Oh, Specialist Schnee!" she said as she realized what had happened and her threat perception dialed down.
"Agent Garnet," she acknowledged formally.
"How'd your visit with your sister go?" said Ruby.
"Surprisingly well," said Schnee, and Ruby had a moment to be frustrated with how lame words were. Did that mean it was a surprise that the visit had gone well at all, or did she mean it went better than expected? And what made a visit go well or poorly, anyway? What did any of this mean?
Ruby was still trying to figure this out when Specialist Schnee spoke again. "It's time. The General is departing today, and you'll be going with him."
Excitement lit up Ruby like a tracer round. "This is it? We're going to Vale?!"
"Yes," said Schnee. "You will be aboard KAS Magnanimous. Your weapons, clothes, and equipment will be provided and are being loaded up now. If there's anything else you'd like to bring along, now's the time to pack it."
"Yes, ma'am!" said Ruby, saluting mightily.
"I'll expect you in the hangar half an hour from now," said Schnee.
"Yes, ma'am!" Ruby said again, before breaking away into a run—no, too slow, she activated her semblance and blurred through the halls back to her room.
She was going to Vale!
Not just for reconnaissance this time, not undercover, not dreading she'd be chewed out if she got involved in something, not with a dozen edicts like "don't talk to strangers" ringing in her head that she still managed to screw up… No, this time she would be going as Agent Garnet of the Atlas Military. Soon, she'd be able to go all-out and really show what she could do. She'd be the Great Hope of Atlas, not just for herself, but for everyone.
And she'd get to see Penny again.
She wasn't sure how that would work out. Planning and logistics had always been handled by other people. Still, Ruby knew that whatever was required to get to see and talk to Penny again, she'd do.
After all, Penny was training to be a Huntress, so she was in basically the same business as Ruby, right? Right.
Saving the world was awesome, but saving the world with her friends had to be so much better!
The trickle of students coming to Beacon became a flood. Those from furthest away tended to come back sooner, to give themselves buffers against the ever-present dangers of travel on Remnant. Penny wondered if Beacon students could afford to assume more certainty. They were themselves good insurance against grimm, even when only half-trained.
Or maybe, she thought as she saw more students that she'd handily wiped out in combat class, she was projecting. Even the ferry to Patch would always rely more on its own armaments and the skill of its crew than the unknown quantities that were its passengers.
Even as more students arrived, however, Blake kept pushing, trying to jam in a few more missions before the start of the semester scrambled everything.
Penny felt justified in considering these to be missions. They might not have been posted on the mission board, exactly, but they were in coordination with the headmaster, and the headmaster had great control over his kingdom's mission board. Certainly none of it constituted schoolwork, a fact Yang was sure Weiss would complain about when the time came.
Getting more teammates to their side didn't help as much as Penny thought it might. Just Sun's teammate Neptune seemed strangely distracted whenever Blake or Yang were around, and he was supremely distractible in the presence of Just Sun. Confusingly, Just Sun seemed to become less competent in the presence of Neptune, and the reverse, Penny discovered, was also true.
"They've only got one brain cell total," Yang had explained to Penny. "When they're apart, they've got it full time, but when they're together, they have to timeshare it."
"Is that…" Penny mustered her courage. "Is that metaphor?"
"You got it that time!" said Yang.
"I did!" said Penny. It had helped that Yang's suggestion was not anatomically possible (or at least Analysis was 93% sure it was anatomically impossible) but Penny wasn't about to let that qualification bother her.
Still… "Why are they like that, though?"
Yang gave a remarkably non-illuminating shrug.
Regardless, Neptune's arrival added another body to their rotation of scouts, and Blake put him to use immediately... away from Just Sun. Pyrrha wasn't so lucky.
"Pyrrha, you know we love you," said Yang, "but you are anything but inconspicuous."
"I'm sorry!" Pyrrha said.
"It's alright," said Blake. "I have things for you to do up here, too."
Pyrrha looked eager to get started, but a look of confusion came over her first as she turned her head to Yang. "Are we saying Yang isn't conspicuous? When she's all…" Words apparently failing her, Pyrrha made vague gestures that encompassed Yang's entire body.
"Aww, that's sweet of you to say," said Yang with a grin, "but until I get my face plastered on cereal boxes across three continents and twelve islands, I'm still lower profile than you."
"That's fair," sighed Pyrrha.
And so time ticked down to three days before the start of the semester.
Penny was eagerly returning to the dorm. She'd completed her next upgrade to Elektra and couldn't wait to show it to her teammates. That went double when the inspiration for it had come from those same teammates.
She reached her dorm, swiped her scroll for entry, opened the door with salutations on her lips—
And shut up.
It appeared that she had trained her teammates only too well. The lights were off, and Yang and Blake were both asleep. Now that Penny checked, she saw that it was well past lights-out. She'd continued working in the Forge because those limits didn't apply to her in nearly the same way and she'd been making such good progress she hadn't wanted to stop.
Apparently, her teammates had the good discipline to go to bed of their own volition, without needing Penny's reminder. Good for them.
Tactical had created branch plans based on Penny's charge state, which was quite low. Option one had been to return to Tower Four to conduct a fast charge; option two had been return to the dorm to socialize and then do a slow charge there. Seeing as socializing was out of the question, Tactical recommended reverting to option one.
Penny declined. She was already here, and whether her teammates were awake to socialize or not, existing in their space was always good. Besides, even with Penny at low charge, she wasn't going to have to fly anywhere overnight. She had the luxury of time to conduct a slow charge.
She got into bed, accessed the charging port in her false navel, plugged herself in, and pulled the covers back over herself.
She didn't need to, and she realized that it wasn't exactly a give-away to her friends that she was a gynoid when they already knew, but she thought they might still find it uncanny, and she didn't want to push that on them.
Strictly speaking, if the most important thing was charging speed, she should go into a low-power state and idle her mind, given that her brain consumed the most power of any system after flight. She had a greater concern, though: she already had in mind the next upgrade she wanted to make to Elektra. Weapons work was just too exciting!
So she dove into that, instead. The mechanics of this upgrade would be difficult, and would greatly expand the size of the pommel. This wasn't all bad: a heftier pommel changed the balance of the weapon, but that allowed her to make the blade heavier and less tapered, enhancing its slashes. She even had the space to add the Burn Dust enhancements back to the cutting edge! There was an upper limit to how heavy she could make each sword before she started losing too much speed, but she hadn't reached that point yet.
None of this did anything to correct the reload problem, but reloading was less of a problem if her shots had more stopping power…
Tactical pinged.
Higher consciousness reviewed Tactical's logs. It had picked up stray events that individually were trivial but together had exceeded a warning threshold: muffled beep; change to ambient light; change to pressure; changes to background noise, both transient and sustained.
Penny opened her eyes, but looking up from flat on her back in bed showed her nothing. She reached out with her other sensors inst—
Intruder.
Slipping through the doorway, moving at a snail's pace to keep observables to near-zero. If Penny had been limited to human or Faunus senses, she would've missed them.
Which meant there was no legitimate purpose for their presence.
Penny kept her own observables at near-zero as she gathered data. She grew ever more alarmed as that data rolled in, as the picture got uglier the more she understood it.
The intruder was inexorably moving towards the bed of Penny's teammate.
The intruder had a weapon.
Huntresses were mobile fortresses, capable of withstanding explosions and artillery and shaking it off… in battle. When they had their Auras. When they were awake. A sleeping Huntress was as fragile as a civilian.
Penny's teammates were asleep.
Vulnerable.
Helpless.
This intruder was here to kill Penny's teammate.
Penny couldn't spare even a single cycle for horror. She gave Tactical 100% of system resources, thinking as hard and as fast as she could. Factors were accounted for, plans created and discarded at lightning speed, all without betraying her consciousness to the foe. She didn't dare move, not until she was ready—couldn't give the game away.
The intruder picked up a foot. They were close—far too close.
Any closer—if that foot completed its slow traverse—and they'd be in lunge range of a soft, defenseless body.
Penny was out of time. She picked her best plan and committed.
fwump
She whipped her bedsheets up at the intruder, trying to obscure their vision, draw their attention, anything to break the attack—all with one hand.
Her other hand drew and formed one blade of Elektra.
blam blam blam
Elektra roared as Penny held nothing back, firing as fast as its mechanisms allowed, covering fire, covering fire, break the attack, protect protect protect—
The intruder swiped away the flying bed sheets in time to eat the first bullet, deflect a second, try to gather around the third—
Blake was up and screaming, Yang was up and bellowing, there was a thrum of energy as souls roared to life—
The intruder fled.
No. Never. Never never never.
This intruder had tried to murder Penny's teammate.
Penny bolted out of bed, had to follow, to chase this monster.
A slight tug held her back for a moment; there was a ripping sound as Penny overpowered anything that might hold her back and rushed to follow.
There was nothing in the hallway outside the dorm—in the visual spectrum. Penny was already in IR-visual overlay mode, and saw the heat signature her foe's illusions couldn't hide.
Penny bent to chase even as Tactical IDed the threat. The petite woman from the warehouse, matched in the after-action report to Neopolitan, notorious Vale criminal and enforcer for Roman Torchwick.
Background information, conjured up with fractional resources because the chase was everything because this monster had come to murder and that was unforgiveable—
Penny felt heat. She knew her systems were running at combat temperatures; this was different, this was—this was—
Chase her down, can't let her escape.
Neo went through an open door and sent it slamming behind her. Penny crashed through the door in an explosion of wood and Aura and heat. Neo dropped down a stairwell; Penny was right behind her. Neo shot out the fire escape, setting off alarms everywhere, alarms which couldn't be ringing louder than the ones in Penny's head, as Penny smashed the concrete floor beneath her weight, transitioned immediately into a sprint through the door because how dare Neo think she could get away, how dare she—
As Penny burst into the open, debris flying in all directions, three Neos attacked her from every angle, and if any of them had IR signatures Penny would have reacted, but she let all three of them shatter harmlessly against her Aura as she roared after the real Neo.
Penny couldn't let Neo get away, not again, this was all her fault because the first time she'd beaten Neo in a way that let her get away and now she'd come around again—no, zero resources to Analysis, no deep thinking right now, only Tactical, all resources on this moment now to get the enemy enemy enemy…
Neo was ridiculously fast, fast as any Huntress without a speed semblance.
Penny was faster.
Warning: power low.
No no no no no, she couldn't let anything stop her now, she couldn't let—
Tactical furiously computed a run speed that would balance power consumption with velocity; Penny discarded that recommendation—it evaporated in the heat consuming her—because she had to catch Neo, and if it took Penny collapsing into forced shutdown it would be absolutely worth it…
Neo was running for Beacon's perimeter on the forest side. She couldn't go over the cliff; surely she had a landing strategy but her pursuers would, too. No, it would be the forest, where an illusionist would have infinite opportunities to juke, dodge, misdirect, and vanish, and that was intolerable.
Both Aura-wielders were racing for the perimeter, all other concerns secondary to straight-line speed, and Penny was closing the gap but too slowly.
There was the fence ahead, coming closer with every stride, with weapons emplacements at intervals, but those weapons were focused on keeping the outside out, not keeping things from escaping, they were useless to Penny now.
Penny aimed Elektra and fired one, two, three bullets into Neo's back (four left). Neo couldn't see them, couldn't gage how much Aura to use, could defend only wastefully by instinct, but it wasn't enough damage, not nearly enough. Neo was approaching the fence. She'd likely vault it; Penny would run through it; the delay would be noticeable. Even through the heat haze, the math was the math: at these speeds, Neo would make the treeline before Penny caught her, and things would get infinitely harder from there…
A rocker locker slammed into the ground right in Neo's path.
Too late for her to dodge completely. She angled around it but bounced hard from its surface, Aura flaring from the impact. Losing that speed made all the difference. Penny would catch her; every stride devoured the gap between them.
Neo knew.
Neo changed plans.
Neo struck.
Penny literally could not care any less.
The stab Neo inflicted on Penny was the strongest blow Penny'd ever absorbed, every bit of Neo's strength behind the parasol and concentrated on the point of its blade and acting against Penny's full-out running speed with all her enormous momentum behind it; a third of Penny's total Aura vanished in an instant.
Didn't matter.
Because absorbing the blow and pushing through it blocked the parasol up and out, kept Penny moving into Neo's space, and Neo had a moment to flash surprise before she was hit by the equivalent of a hate-powered freight train on fire.
The fighters were sent tumbling as Aura sparked and flickered; Penny's senses, numbed as they were from the circumstances, struggled to make sense of the blurs and streaks of color and sound and emotion and heat—
Neo's hand flailed, found a rock, smashed it against Penny's head. The rock shattered against Aura and metallic skull. Too close for longswords, with the two fighters entangled and limbs everywhere; Penny lashed out with a fist instead, couldn't tell what exactly she'd hit but could see a body jerk in response. Neo grabbed a handful of dirt and grass and smeared it in Penny's face; Penny's sight was obscured even more but her other senses, though less accurate, were good enough to let her strike at this range with elbows and fists and knees again, and again, and-
It was nothing like the duels Penny had practiced, that she'd excelled at. It was brutal, violent, desperate, dirty, messy.
Neo knew the danger. She fought with the crazed recklessness of a cornered animal.
Penny met her.
Warning: power critical. Engaging emergency reserve.
Non-essential systems turned off. Emotion Signifying and Vocal both turned off. Some of Penny's senses turned off, leaving those she needed most. Even touch sensors turned off besides the ones in her hands.
It wouldn't save much power, but it might save enough for one more punch. One more second of running. One more break of an attempted grapple.
A worthy sacrifice.
Neo jabbed an elbow under Penny's chin, applied weight, trying to threaten her airway even through her Aura.
Penny almost laughed, because she didn't need to breathe. Her hand came up behind Neo's head at the same time she tilted her own head forward—into a skull-cracking head-butt.
Neo recoiled in a daze but instinctively lashed out again, tearing at Penny's face; Penny threw Neo bodily away from her. The slight opening was enough for Neo; she scrambled to her feet, looking for the fence again.
No!
Cannot let her-
Penny had dropped Elektra in the scuffle, but her newly-installed feature kicked in: cords impregnated with Gravity Dust connecting weapon to stow. Both blades zipped into Penny's hands.
Neo took three steps before two bullets (two left) knocked her off-balance and caused her Aura to flicker wildly, uncontrollably, surely moments from failing, and still Neo stumbled on, trying to escape, a few more steps from leaping the fence.
Penny took unerring aim and shot Neo in the leg.
With a weapon specced to penetrate the armor of elder grimm.
The bullet (one left) punched through the remaining Aura like it was paper, through muscle, through bone. Neo crumpled, cradling her ruined leg in both hands and letting out an unending, noiseless scream.
Penny rose to her feet as Tactical updated its assessments. Neo's ability to resist was greatly diminished, but her willingness seemed as high as ever, Penny's power was desperately low, and no chances could be taken with this enemy, this monster, who'd summoned this heat and pegged Penny's danger meters to their maximum by threatening her teammates—neutralize—
"Penny!"
Tactical, still with 100% system resources, processed the new stimulus instantly. Yang's voice. Reinforcements were here. A wounded, Aura-broken Neo could not resist Penny and her teammates, and was no longer a threat to said teammates. The situation was secure.
At last, at last Penny redirected resources, shifted some away from Tactical… and the moment she did, she stumbled backwards as Jiminy screamed at her, because she'd been aiming Elektra's final bullet at Neo's unprotected center of mass.
Penny vibrated in place from sheer emotion.
It might have been her dangerously low-power state, it might have been the crush of emotions, it might have been her subroutines reinitializing into confusion after having been shut down for the duration of the chase, but Penny was swamped by disorientation so intense she fell to her knees.
"Penny, are you—holy shit!"
Penny turned off fine motor control, left Emotion Signifying zeroed (her face was slack and stayed that way), then turned off more sensors, limiting herself to hearing and visible-spectrum sight alone, no need for the others, and this helped limit incoming stimuli… and still it was too much.
"I…" she said, having to reinitialize Vocal and doing so clumsily, "…I have apprehended the intruder."
"Indeed."
New voice. Penny looked behind her and saw, coming from a different direction from her teammates, Professor Ozpin.
"She was in our room," Penny said, Vocal modulating wildly, unable to keep her voice steady. "She came to… to kill…"
She couldn't finish, but judging from the look of cold, hard fury that had overtaken Professor Ozpin, he understood. "You've done well, Penny. I know it was difficult, but stopping Neo was an important thing to do."
The words didn't affect her. Her teammates coming down to her level on either side—not that she could feel them, but she could see when they did—helped her much more.
Professor Ozpin swept past Penny to look down at Neo. "You'll live," he said, though without any warmth or comfort in the words. "If we get you medical care promptly, you may even regain full function in your leg. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
Neo, still rolling on the ground, found enough composure to raise one finger on one hand.
"I see," said Professor Ozpin. "Hopefully emergency services aren't delayed." He looked back at Penny and his gaze softened slightly. "Miss Pallas, your work here is done. I won't have you and your teammates going back to your room. Take them to Tower Four."
Penny saw her friends' confusion in her peripheral vision, but Tactical—operating only with the tiny fraction of resources Penny trusted it with—approved the plan. "Yes, sir, but there's no bedding in my room there."
"Stop by the fifth floor on your way up," Professor Ozpin said. "You are free to take whatever bedding you need from there."
"Yes, sir," Penny replied.
He nodded at her and turned away. The moment he had, Yang said, "Tower Four?"
"Where I conduct my maintenance," said Penny. "It is extremely secure. Far more than our dorm."
"Sounds like the place to be about now," Yang said, trying for bravado and failing miserably. She was doing better than Blake, at least; Blake was paler than Penny had ever seen her and was vibrating painfully. "Lead the way."
Penny tried to rise; she did so stiffly, uncomfortably. "I hate to ask this of you," said Penny, her voice slurring uncontrollably, "but I am at extremely low power. Under two percent. Only I can access the secure space in Tower Four, and I cannot help you if I undergo low-power shutdown."
"We'll carry you," said Yang. They heard Professor Ozpin's voice again; Yang turned to look but saw him talking on his scroll, standing close—but not too close—to the writhing Neopolitan. "Damn, that chick again. What's her deal?"
"She was aligned with the White Fang," said Penny, "and we have been disrupting the White Fang."
"I wish I'd hit her head-on with my locker, that little bitch." Yang tried to force a smile on as she looked to Blake. "Well, I guess that's kind of a compliment, right? We must be giving the White Fang fits if they want to kill you."
"You don't get it," said Blake, the words bursting from her along with heavy tears. "She wasn't here for me."
"What?" said Yang numbly.
"Adam is spite incarnate," Blake said, her voice even shakier than Penny's. "It's not enough for him to kill me. He has to hurt me first."
Yang's eyes widened; she looked to Penny. "Blake is correct," Penny said. "Neo wasn't here to kill her."
All color drained from Yang's face as Penny met her eyes and said the unbearable.
"She was here to kill you."
Next time: The Quietest Room
