Penny had been in the forest before during Initiation and during various field trips throughout the year. She was familiar with it in principle.

It was different in the night. Ambient noises and sights were so much different between night and day. The difference in animal life alone was jarring. More importantly, she was having to operate in full IR mode with a 10% visual overlay, and the forest looked very different in infrared.

There was also the charge of expectation that changed how she perceived things. Tactical was gobbling up resources as every rustle of leaves, every snap of branches, every flicker of movement was investigated as a potential threat. It couldn't be helped; this was hostile territory. Sure, a grimm-filled forest was always hostile territory, but grimm tended to be less than subtle. Having people as adversaries added new dimensions to the threat profile.

Team BXPS moved in single file with Blake in the lead and Penny covering the rear. Normally it was not a best practice for team leaders to take point, but Blake was the most accomplished pathfinder of the bunch, which mattered immensely when stealth was a priority. Penny covering the rear with extra senses was just as prudent.

Qrow moved on ahead in hopscotch fashion, disappearing into the canopy to scout out ahead, waiting for them to catch up to him, then leaping into the high branches once more. Penny was baffled at how someone so seemingly large and heavy could move so lightly and silently; he even all-but-disappeared from IR. Perhaps there was a semblance in play.

They'd landed more than ten klicks away from their staging point at the south of the depression. While normally a Huntress could cover that ground in a matter of minutes, things were different when stealth was required. Moving at a relative crawl, Team BXPS took its time navigating through the forest as cautiously as they dared.

They encountered no sentries out this far, nor any inquisitive grimm. The grimm, as ever, were the greatest threat to the operation, less so for the danger they posed themselves and more because a grimm attack might raise a commotion, and even force the Huntresses to go loud defending themselves. All of them could fight without using guns or Dust, but none of them were at their best without those tools, and using them might alert the White Fang.

Still, even the grimm were out of the team's way tonight. Perhaps they were sleeping. Did grimm sleep? Civilization's compendium of grimm knowledge (or at least the substantial portion of that compendium loaded in Penny's databanks) was silent on the topic. As urgent as it was to study the grimm, their nature precluded in-depth study, and some aspects of their behavior remained stubbornly opaque.

At last the team reached its ready position. Penny could tell by her own internal navigation, by topographic clues, and by the way Qrow was standing with his back to a tree trunk, shielding him from the camp ahead, which was barely visible as a vague glow. Penny couldn't see the ridge up ahead blocking off this area, what with the forest being so thick, but she was sure it was there.

Qrow made hand signs in their direction. Penny found she overall preferred communicating with hand signs, as the fewer and cruder meanings of them meant fewer possible permutations of meaning to calculate.

This hand sign, for example, was very simple: standby. It was easy to know what that meant and easier to apply. Penny knew from the briefing what they were waiting for and when they could expect to act and what they would do at that point.

Thesaurus was pleased with itself right up until Analysis pointed out that 95% of that meaning was not from the hand sign. It was all contextual: The mission briefing, which had used a great many words, had transmitted almost all of the meaning, while the command to standby made sense only with all of that meaning already in Penny's mind. Which meant hand signs weren't a good alternative to talking; they were a blunt instrument useful only for their subterfuge.

Penny was proud of herself and exasperated with herself at the same time. It was a very strange sensation.

Be that as it may, Team BXPS fanned out to the left and right of Qrow's position in good cover to await the signal to proceed. Penny found herself a bush to hide behind, on the principle that her sheer mass would let her crash through a bush that might be a meaningful obstacle to her teammates; that freed up the trees for her teammates to hide behind. The efficiency of it was satisfying.

They'd gotten into position with plenty of time to spare. They'd given themselves a generous buffer in case of interference or obstacle, and had needed none of that buffer, which meant there was nothing to do but wait while the buffer time expired. Wait—while at full combat readiness, with every sense straining to detect threats that were just out of view. An unhelpful combination.

Blake seemed to cope with this naturally. She kept her head and body focused in her chosen direction, with only her swiveling ears suggesting she was more than a statue. Weiss was having a harder time, but was at least able to maintain stillness; her compromise with agitation was to move her mouth in voiceless recitation... of what, Penny wasn't sure, but it was good enough to help Weiss remain still.

Yang, predictably, was having the most trouble, restlessly shifting her weight back and forth on her feet and clasping and unclasping her hands, rolling her shoulders to stay limber and bouncing on the balls of her feet. Yang had described her semblance as "fire in the blood": a roaring, burning energy inside of her that built with the punishment she took. That implied to Penny that at least some of that fire burned within Yang at all times, and occasions like this let her see exactly that.

Qrow, in contrast to the tension of the students, seemed so relaxed Penny had to verify and reverify that he was not asleep.

At last, after long minutes of seeing nothing alive beyond vegetation and an enterprising chipmunk, Penny recorded a silent alarm. She gestured to her comrades. Five minutes.

This made things worse. Blake put a hand on the grip of her sword and rolled her fingers along it. Weiss' mouth paused its breathless repetitions only long enough for her to wet her lips. Yang looked like she might burst into flames at any moment. Even Qrow left his slouch and assumed a readier position.

Penny recalled those breathless moments before Initiation, waiting helplessly for the catapults to toss them into action. She'd felt a similar sense of anticipation then. The differences, of course, were that she was supposed to pass Initiation, whereas this was live fire and anything could happen; more importantly, the wait for the catapults to fire had been under a minute from the conclusion of their mission briefing. This was taking far longer—long enough for Tactical to conduct any number of simulations on how things might go.

Penny thought this would help, that knowing in advance the different things that might happen would make her feel more prepared and thus more at ease. Unfortunately, every simulation was accompanied by a disclaimer about unknowns and probabilities—showing the simulation only covered a small percent of the possible outcomes.

Well, she'd just have to wait and see…

Blake's ears stopped their swiveling and focused in one direction. Taking that as a cue, Penny upped her own audio processing.

Low pitch… artificial… from multiple vectors to the northeast, north, and northwest…

…and getting louder in a hurry!

"Incoming," she whispered. Hands tightened on weapons; Qrow leaned around his tree, though his chances of seeing or hearing anything at this distance were—

The growing noise blasted into a full roar, which let Penny identify it: airships transitioning from overland travel to hover. Powerful lights burned at the camp from the sky.

"Airships weren't part of the mission brief," said Weiss.

"They weren't part of the plan," said Qrow. "Something's wrong!"

The words prompted Tactical to ping Retrieval for a quick search-and-classification—that explained it. "Those are the sounds of Atlesian airships," she said.

Wait—that didn't explain anything!

"What are they doing here?!" said Yang.

As if to answer, a voice spoke over a loudspeaker, only just distinct to Penny with several layers of filtering.

"Attention! This is the Atlas Military! Drop your weapons and surrender! This is your only warning!"

"It's the Atlas Military," Penny relayed.

"Dammit, Jimmy," said Qrow, all his attention focused on the camp ahead, "what are you thinking?"

There was a burst of flame from ground level, the shriek of a projectile, then the blast of impact-trigger explosives; one of the Mantas spun to the ground like a whirligig. Gunfire erupted in response, from every direction: from within the camp, from either side of the camp, from above the camp, with all those sounds reflected by the cliff wall into a solid sheet of sound.

It appeared the White Fang was not surrendering.

And now everyone was shooting at everyone.

It was still over three minutes before they were supposed to deploy, but Tactical warned that surprise was lost now, things were underway…

Qrow drew his weapon from his back. It deployed with a menacing growl into a sword almost as big as Elektra 1.0. Penny liked Qrow even more.

"No point waiting now," he said. "Let's go!"

He charged down with such alacrity Penny wondered if he had a speed semblance; Team BXPS followed as quickly as they could.

They'd reached the bottom of the depression when there was an explosion of dirt, rock, and ichor.

Was there a cave the survey had missed, or that had been concealed by forest detritus? Or was this something newly dug?

Because there should have been no way that so many grimm could be swarming so suddenly.

An elder Deathstalker—the size of a bus—had smashed open the burrow; juvenile, dog-sized Deathstalkers skittered around and beneath it, chittering almost as loudly as the gunfire, a sinister sibilance from a hundred soulless maws.

Almost before Penny could process all of this, Qrow had leapt into action, scaling the elder Deathstalker's claw and slashing at the exposed grimmskin behind it. "Handle the little ones!" he shouted above the din. "I got the big guy!"

"Roger!" Blake called back. "Area attacks, go!"

Blake charged in first and boldly, so deep into the swarm that they ran her over without pausing—except that wasn't her at all; she'd semblanced back, and the not-Blake amidst the swarm resolved into flame, then a consuming explosion.

A large glyph sprang into being beneath pounding insectoid legs, only to turn red, then burst into a pillar of fire that left only ash behind.

Yang pulled up short of diving into the crowd, instead using flare rounds from her gauntlets to seed explosions in the Deathstalkers' ranks, blasting them two or three at a time.

And Penny? Penny was spinning, spinning, spinning, both blades of Elektra extended and tearing through grimm after grimm. This move wasn't safe to use against intelligent enemies, who could control range and find her openings; against immature grimm that couldn't help but mindlessly rush her like the tide, she could shred them as fast they came.

Ren, seeing this move once, had called it "the Blender". Penny liked the sound of that.

More explosions, more blasts of grimm chitin shrapnel, more and more blending, to the point that Penny's gyro warned her she'd be unsteady if she stopped, meaning she couldn't stop, had to keep on fighting the tide…

"Close in!" called Blake. Yes—Tactical agreed, they were beating back the Deathstalkers, but their munitions weren't infinite, they couldn't blow all their Dust and ammunition so quickly, best to finish the rest efficiently if they could afford to… but what about…

The elder Deathstalker's stinger hit the ground to Penny's north, no longer attached to its body.

Ah. Qrow had the elder under control, then.

Penny slowed her spin as her comrades approached, and then they were amidst the remaining Deathstalkers, punching and slashing and skewering, every motion causing a grimm or two to sublimate like dry ice.

Penny was filled with pride for her team.

There—that was the last of them, ripped apart by a perturbed looking Yang, and Penny heard a less-than-threatening squeal as the elder Deathstalker collapsed. Qrow touched down in the midst of the team just as Penny brought her spin down to manageable levels, maybe five more seconds from stopping.

Qrow took one look at the hole that had released the Deathstalkers and swore. "That's not natural."

Penny wanted more than anything to ask what that meant, but she felt as much as she heard a rumbling approach. "New contacts to the south," she warned. "Heavy ones."

Her team turned around, backs to the camp, and saw red eyes and white armor cresting the depression and thundering down towards them.

Boarbatusks and Ursai—at least six of each, with every advantage of momentum and no way to divert or ensnare them.

Or was there?

Because Weiss had leapt forward. "All my ice coming down now!" she cried, plunging Myrtenaster's tip into the ground.

It worked—some. Two Ursai and three Boarbatusks slipped and slid on the ice, losing their footing and their strength, tumbling down the slope helter-skelter and ping-ponging off of trees, sometimes fatally… but they smashed into the ice so hard they broke the sheet of it. The grimm behind had better footing, and used it to continue their charge down the depression.

Once more, Qrow leapt into the fray well ahead of Team BXPS, his sword—changed into a scythe now, how wondrous!—lashing out like lightning, severing limbs and detaching heads, but there were still two charging grimm for every member of BXPS.

Tactical briefly considered retreat, but Jiminy knew better: behind them was the camp, where an active firefight was going on. Grimm wouldn't care who they attacked: White Fang or Atlas soldier, Huntsman or civilian, wounded or crippled or surrendered—the grimm would consume them all.

Penny wouldn't let them.

And there were advantages to being a solid mass of metal and Aura.

Boarbatusk and Ursa coming right at her.

Penny drove her left-hand blade into the ground behind her and went into a spinning hook, her left fist looping around the Boarbatusk's defenses and smashing its skull armor to pieces.

She wasn't done. The momentum of the punch was so extreme it threw the Boarbatusk sideways into the Ursa, entangling them both, sending them sprawling.

Penny grabbed her blade and sprang to finish them while their guards were down, but a second Ursa had been behind the others, and it plowed into her, chomping down hard on her arm.

It nearly broke its neck running into her; she stumbled and tottered, recovered, made a wide loop with her arm that flipped the still-biting Ursa over, and ran it through.

Just in time for the Ursa and Boarbatusk she hadn't finished to reengage.

She was able to stand her ground and end them, but it took time and Aura she didn't have to spare. She turned to her teammates in time to see an Ursa launched into the air by a glyph, only for Yang to stuff it full of point-blank buckshot before it could react. Blake was leading two more on a merry chase, got them to collide with each other, drove her blades through one's neck; Penny reached the fight in time to bisect the other.

There was no euphoria or exultation this time. Penny didn't need to check her scroll to know her team was missing chunks from its Auras, and their breathing was growing labored.

"We've gotta get to the top," said Qrow, returning to them again. "We can't fight them down here, we'll get smoked."

Penny heartily agreed; none of the students objected as Qrow led them up to the depression's southern edge.

Just in time to meet the Beowolves.

No Academy student was much concerned with individual Beowolves, but this was a pack of Alphas, a thing Penny hadn't realized existed. Six of them, in total.

Qrow surged into the middle of the group; processing this instantly, Blake called out, "Burn-Freeze left, Shade-Spark right!"

As Weiss and Yang broke left, Penny targeted the rightmost Alpha, knowing her duty was to cover Blake as she approached. She raised Elektra and fired a Dust-enhanced volley.

The first shot hit the Alpha's lead right paw and encased it in stone; the second blew past the Alpha on its left, wind blasting from it as it went. The combination destroyed the Alpha's balance; it tumbled to its side, and Blake was there immediately to finish it.

Except she didn't.

The Alpha caught Shroud in its teeth; Gambol sunk true into its chest, but that wasn't enough to kill it. Instead it swiped at Blake, hitting her and sparking against her Aura, and she couldn't dodge without forsaking her weapons—

But all that kept the Alpha's head steady.

One rifle round went in each of the Alpha's eye sockets. The back of its head burst like a water balloon.

Penny was thankful to have finished it, because the next instant another Alpha's claws took a chunk from her Aura.

The Alpha followed up, but Penny was ready now. She backed up, skewered the offending claw, and drove Elektra down, pulling the Alpha with it. It hit the ground hard and immobilized; Blake took its head before it knew what had hit it.

Penny checked again. Six Alphas had attacked them; now there were none.

More movement detected.

"What the hell?!" shouted Qrow. Again, Penny was inclined to agree. What had happened to "the grimm probably won't arrive until after the fight's well underway"?

But even more and larger grimm were converging from different directions: from the left an Ursa Major leading a quartet of its smaller kin, from dead ahead a King Taijitu, and on the right a Beringel with Boarbatusk escorts. And did Penny hear the trumpeting of a Goliath?

She looked at her teammates, saw them running the same calculations she was.

This was… a lot of grimm.

Especially if there were more behind.

But they weren't training to be Huntresses for nothing, and they weren't about to let these grimm rampage into the war-torn camp behind them. Especially not with Qrow, a true professional, digging in his heels to stand his ground!

That meant BXPS had to hold this position. One way or another…

A scroll's chirp sounded from Qrow's pocket. "What?!" he said.

"You have multiple grimm waves incoming," said a voice Penny found familiar but couldn't place.

"No shit, Jimmy," said Qrow.

"I'm bringing you support. Don't shoot her."

"'Her'?" repeated Qrow. "What the hell kinda 'her' have you got?"

Penny was wondering the same—until Analysis realized she knew exactly the kind of 'her' that qualified as reinforcements by herself.

A Manta swooped into a hover above BXPS and lit up the gloom with its floodlights. From it dropped a single figure. There was no pretense of civilian clothes in her appearance, this time: her full exoskeleton was deployed over a red-and-black bodysuit, her weapons were fully formed, and her visored helmet was in place. She landed with a thud suggesting the weight of her armor and gear, but without noticeable hardship.

"Garnet!" said Penny, her mood fully reversed.

Ruby looked at Penny long enough to smile, but then turned back to the grimm. She seemed to calculate the odds and not like them, because she said, "Nope, I'm not messing around with this."

She tapped the side of her helmet, right at eye-level.

Both heads of the King Taijitu hissed at her as it slithered close. The Beringel thumped its chest in challenge. The Ursa Major roared, a sound its lessers imitated.

Ruby stepped forward without concern, boldly enough that Qrow reached in her direction. "Hey, kid—"

Light.

Silvery light so bright it was felt as much as seen, so bright even its reflections and refractions were almost blinding. BX_S turned and sheltered their eyes; Penny lowered the sensitivity of hers so she could watch, could keep her eyes on what was happening.

What was happening was Ruby. Ruby was happening.

The King Taijitu screamed in fury as it burned away, melting out of existence everywhere the light touched. When it had been blasted to ash, the light turned towards the Ursai. The younger Ursai vanished immediately like dust blown from a table; the Ursa Major struggled on for two steps before disintegrating.

Even the sidelobes of the light were enough to damage the Boarbatusks; the full strength of the light consumed them in an instant. The Beringel held up an arm as if to ward off the light. It partly worked: the Beringel's arm dissolved and much of its body was scorched, but the light winked out before it was obliterated.

It never had the chance to take advantage of this, because Ruby was before it instantly, and in the next instant the Beringel was headless.

Quiet came over the forest. Penny had to readjust her optics again, as she'd had so many filters in place to screen the silver light that she was blind now that it'd gone.

And there was Ruby, standing before them, barely even breathing hard.

It was an awesome sight.

"Wow," said Penny.

"What was that?!" said Yang.

"Silver eyes," said Qrow. Penny's head snapped towards him—how did he know Ruby's eye color? And what did that have to do with the light?

Ruby took a breath and turned back towards BXPS. "Everyone okay?" she asked.

Qrow fell to his knees.

"Summer?" he whispered.

Ruby blinked in confusion—which Penny saw because Ruby's visor had gone transparent. Tactical guessed that, if Qrow was correct that the light came from Ruby's eyes, then Ruby would have had to de-polarize her sunglasses to let the light out…

…which meant Ruby wasn't concealing her face.

Which looked so much like Summer Rose's.

Even as fast as Penny could process all that, the world was moving faster. "No," said Qrow. "No, you're not… Summer died, and you're younger, you're…"

Qrow's eyes were wide as could be, his jaw was hanging open, and tears poured down his face.

"You're Ruby," he said in a hoarse whisper.

"Ruby?!" said Yang, tearing off her goggle set so she could see with her own eyes.

Ruby took a step backwards. "How did you know my name?"

Yang took two forwards. "Ruby? No way, it can't…" she stepped forward again, swaying as she did, like she had no processing power to regulate motor functions.

"I don't know who you think I am…" Ruby said, holding up her hands.

"Bullshit!" screamed Yang. "You look just like mom!"

"I don't have a mom," said Ruby feebly.

"You're not Garnet," said Yang, clinging to her sash like a lifeline. "You're Ruby Rose!

"My sister!"

Everyone rocked back from that declaration like they'd been hit by an explosion. Everyone… except Penny.

"I don't have... any sisters..." Ruby said, but as she spoke the words she stumbled and put a hand to her head.

"Ruby," Yang said again in a voice full of desperate longing. "Ruby, please…"

Ruby raised a forearm towards her mouth. "This is Agent Garnet requesting immediate extraction," she said.

"Acknowledged," came a voice from her vambrace.

"You're alive," said Qrow in breathless tones. "You're alive. You've been alive all along. Ever since you were taken."

"I've been in Atlas my whole life," said Ruby through gritted teeth, but Penny could recognize the voice of someone forcing their words.

The Manta moved back into a hover overhead, descending as far into the tree line as its pilot dared.

"Don't leave!" said Yang with a terrible scream. "Please! Don't leave me! Not again!"

The Manta's bay door clanged open. Ruby blurred into motion as her semblance took her up a tree; a kickoff put her into the Manta, which rose up and away out of sight.

"No," groaned Qrow. "No..."

"Not again," whispered Yang in utter defeat.

Nothing they said made a difference to the hunk of flying metal as it rose above the trees, then moved out of sight and hearing.

Penny tried to track it as best she could, but this deep in the forest that didn't take her far. And when she returned her senses to her team, she saw Yang glowing like a nova, with tears gushing down her cheeks and an expression of heartbroken fury on her face.

"You knew!"

Emotion Signifying simulated a swallow.

"You knew all this time!" said Yang, though it sounded as if every word cost her terrible pain.

"I didn't know," said Penny.

"You asked to see pictures over our break," said Yang. "You wanted to see pictures of Ruby so you'd be sure! You knew!"

"I suspected," said Penny desperately as if the words would take away some of Yang's terrible momentum. "I thought it was possible. But I didn't know for sure. I couldn't."

"And you never said anything!" said Yang. "What is this, some kind of big joke to you? Am I that pathetic to you? My sister…" Yang's hand went to her red sash with such force Penny could hear threads snapping, "…the biggest deal in my entire life, and you never said a word!"

Penny felt an echo of Yang's pain and sorrow. "I let other people talk about themselves and reveal things or not," she recited with perfect recall.

"Oh, super clever, throw my words back at me," said Yang like a wounded animal. "Just one more way to show how stupid I am and rub in what you know that I don't.

"I thought we were friends. Maybe you don't get how that works after all."

Thesaurus had nothing. Analysis had nothing. Jiminy had less than nothing. No subroutine in Penny's net could offer a single word or thought or course of action.

"I'm sorry," Penny whispered.

"Yeah," said Yang, weeping disconsolately. "I bet you are."

As bad as the explosion had been, the implosion was even worse. Yang had spent all her words, Penny had none, and now the silence between them was the most destructive force Penny had ever felt.

The only sound breaking it up was the heavy and anguished sobbing that Yang couldn't stop.

When finally a voice broke the silence, it wasn't Yang's or Penny's or their teammates'. It was Qrow's, talking on his scroll.

"Glynda, where's an airship? We need an evac. We've got so much negativity here we'll bring the whole forest down on us if we don't scram."

Glynda rattled off coordinates. "Be there in two," said Qrow. He rose, though with every motion he trembled like a man with nerve damage. "We need to go. We'll talk back at Beacon."

Yang gave a sound somewhere between a grunt and a scream of pain.

Penny felt likewise.

Next time: Reckoning