Emerald, after using her semblance trick to sneak out of Cinder's room, stopped by Watts' workshop to pick up Penny and (possibly) apologize to her. Her body still ached all over, but her strained aura did wonders overnight to patch herself back up.

However, when she arrived, all Emerald found was Watts himself, eyes bloodshot as he worked at one of his computers.

"Uh, doc?" Emerald began, flinching only slightly when his deranged glare snapped to lock eyes with her. "Where's the kid?"

Watts furrowed his brow, squinting at Emerald with a glossy, fazed out expression. It took him much longer than it should have when he finally replied, "Oh, it's just you."

"Uh, yeah, no shit." Gods, how long had this man been awake? "Are you going to answer me, or…?"

He rolled his eyes, turning back to some sort of 3D model spinning on his monitor. "In its room, I assume."

Emerald glanced around the workshop, still not seeing Penny anywhere. "Where?"

"Not here, you… you…" His head lolled side to side, the weight of his bloated brain finally catching up to him.

"You too tired to insult me, brainiac?"

"No!" he denied (while struggling to sip from a clearly empty energy drink can). "There's just no single word that can do your sheer stupidity justice!"

Eventually, after he took a few more potshots at her intelligence (some of which nearly grazed her ego), Watts finally answered her question with more clarity.

"Salem saw fit to… separate Penny and I, so there were no more distractions to impede my progress. The drone is stored elsewhere now, when I have no need of it."

After a few more minutes of wrangling more specific directions from Watts, Emerald managed to navigate to Penny's new room. It took a moment (the doors weren't numbered like a hotel, after all, so she accidentally knocked on a few wrong doors), but eventually a door opened without having to turn the handle herself.

Penny stood on the other side of it, peeking through the gap cautiously. "Hi, Ruby," she said slowly. "Are… are you still mad?"

Emerald sighed. Had Penny been worried about her outburst all night? Emerald definitely should have apologized yesterday before Salem grabbed her.

"No, Penny. Not at you, at least. May I come in?"

Penny nodded, stepping back from the doorframe and letting the door swing open all the way. When Emerald stepped inside, she had been prepared to be serious and (moderately) heartfelt. But that all broke apart the moment she got her first look at Penny's room—

And laughed before she could stop herself.

"Have I done something humorous?" Penny asked seriously. "If so, I'd like to make a note of it to use later."

"No, Penny, it's just… your room."

"What about it?"

"It's so… fluffy."

Fluffy was an understatement. From the stuffed animals crammed into every crevice of the room, to the floofy dresses spilling from underneath the closet door, almost every surface inch of the bedroom was plastered with something made of felt or wool. There were other miscellaneous things scattered about (like a charging station for Penny to plug into, as well as an art aisle and a few generic board games propped up in one corner), but Emerald couldn't help but notice how plush and soft every surface of the room looked (like it was completely baby-proofed). That didn't even cover the giant canopy bed set against the back wall, silken drapes cascading down to its bed frame.

"Do you even need a bed?" Emerald asked, gingerly running her hand across its sheets (not even Cinder's felt this lusciously soft).

"Not technically." Penny stood to the side of the bed, fiddling with her fingers awkwardly. "Winter said this room was already like this. The only additions were the charging station and some of the board games we play together."

Emerald froze, hands rigid where she gripped the fabric. "Salem plays board games with you?"

"Sometimes. She's more amenable to chess, even if her rules for it are a bit different than the standardized version."

Weird. Just like yesterday, Salem seemed to be interacting with Penny on a far more personal level than Emerald had expected. What was the angle?

Whatever, she'd talk about it with Oz later. For now…

Penny time.

"Sorry," Emerald said sheepishly. "I didn't come here just to ask you random questions. I actually came to apologize for yesterday."

Penny's demeanor flipped in an instant, her reserved shuffling from side to side going ramrod straight. "Really?"

"Yeah, I flipped out on you for, like, no reason." Apology sent. "So… we good?"

Penny faltered for a moment… before crashing into Emerald, tumbling them both across the bed, until Penny successfully wrestled Emerald into a Grimm-breaking hug. "Of course we are!"

Despite being tossed around ass-over-tea-kettle style, Emerald's apology went much better than she expected. Even if it aggravated some of her wounds from last night's… activities with Cinder.

"That's good to hear," Emerald replied, untangling herself from the yoga pose Penny knocked her into. "But if there's anything you want me to do to make it up to you, just let me know."

Penny paused, electricity whirring behind her eyes as she thought about her response. "Well… there is one thing that comes to mind."

"Name it." A silly board game? Another trip to the library? Whatever it was, Emerald was willing to do it (if only to keep Salem off her back). Besides—

What was the worst thing Penny could ask of her?

"Punch me in the face, Ruby!" Penny shouted as Emerald ducked under one of her haymakers. "I need the impact for calibrating!"

Admittedly, Penny wanting to spar with her in the training hall was not something Emerald had expected. But—

Fuck, had it been a while since she'd been in proper fight. The rush of adrenaline coursing through her veins, the spit clamming up her throat as her lungs clocked into overdrive, and the pleasant, dissociative numbness that rocked through her as she focused on one thing and one thing only:

Kicking Penny's ass.

She should've taken up that duel with Merc before he left, 'cause her fists were itching to strike something that could strike back. That being said—

"Penny, are you sure this is how you want me to make it up to you?" Her worried words didn't match the feral grin on her own face as she clipped Penny across the jaw. "It feels… counterproductive."

Penny remained unfazed as Emerald's hand grazed across her chin. In fact, she capitalized on it, spinning with the rotation of Emerald's strike to close the distance and ram her metal knuckles into Emerald's stomach. "How so?"

Emerald almost retched from the impact, but managed to keep her breakfast where it was supposed to be. "I… oof. I mean, fighting someone seems like the opposite of an apology." She took a step backwards, but her stomach lurched with her. "Fuck, you hit hard."

"Sorry. Recalibrating." She steadied her stance, switching to something with lighter lunges and jabs instead of the heavy hitting style she was going for before. "But no need to worry, Ruby—I assure you, this is what I want."

Well… who was Emerald to argue? Fighting sounded more fun anyway. "If you say so!"

After that, their fight fluctuated between messy, near-concussion inducing bouts, to more lax, repetitive spars that were more about practicing the motions of combat, rather than actually aiming to hurt each other. For Emerald, the shift occurred whenever she needed to give her aura a break, or otherwise to cool off from taxing her (already) weary muscles.

On Penny's end, though, it was less about taking a minute to collect herself, and more about her switching up her fighting style over and over again, getting more effective (and brutal) with each style before she swapped to brush up on the next.

"Damn, Penny," Emerald wheezed. "How many martial arts do you know?"

"Not that many, actually," Penny admitted, flexing her fingers slowly as she tested yet another new stance. "But now that Floating Array is effectively retired, I need to settle on a new way to protect myself and exterminate Grimm."

Right. That made sense. "In that case, you should probably use whatever you were doing at the start. Those slower but heavy punches really had me on the run."

"Oh, I see. So it… it didn't bother you?"

"Did what bother me?"

Penny glanced at her strangely. "Using your sister's style?" At Emerald's confused look, Penny continued, "I've been combing through all the fighting data I collected at the tournament to find a suitable replacement for my swords. I'm focusing on the notable hand-to-hand combatants for now and Yang… she was the inspiration for that first style."

Hmm… how would the real Ruby react to this? Maybe just a little sadly, but mostly still (annoyingly) optimistic?

Worth a shot.

"It's fine, Penny. Don't worry about it," Emerald replied, trying to disguise her indifference as repressed grief. "If anything, she'd be glad someone was carrying the torch for her."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure." Please stop asking her about this.

"Okay." Penny didn't look like she fully bought it, but hopefully the lie she was picking up would simply be chalked up to "Ruby" being sad about her (possibly) dead sister. "If you're certain, I guess I'll keep practicing with it, maybe mix it more with the other notable brawler in the tournament, Arslan from Haven. Ooh! Or maybe some of Ren's more precise style…"

After taking a break for a few minutes (and listening to Penny gush more about all the different huntsmen and huntresses she was emulating), their sparring resumed.

This time, however, Penny asked her to use her weapons instead of basic hand-to-hand.

"I'd prefer to practice against Grimm, but until I can leave the castle, a huntress grade weapon should be good enough to test me." Before they could begin, Penny's face lit up with another idea. "Oh! How about later, we brainstorm some new weapon ideas together! I know how much you love designing weapons!"

Great. Yet another Ruby talent she was going to have to bullshit herself through. "Sure, bestie. Why not?" Emerald wasn't even the one to forge her own guns, but she knew enough about the process to give Penny pointers (at the very least). Hopefully that would be enough.

As she shifted both halves of Thief's Respite into their sickle forms, Penny froze rigidly in place. At first, Emerald thought Penny was baiting her for a parry or something, but the longer the pause stretched on, the less likely that became.

"Penny? You good?"

No response. Her eyes blinked on and off, flickering like the nauseating glow of a strobe light. A vacant stare, empty of emotion or focus. It was like Cricket, but worse; at least Cricket felt like it was doing something when it stood around, awaiting orders. In contrast, in that moment, Penny didn't look like she was on standby mode—

She looked like a statue.

"Penny?" Emerald asked again. With still no response, Emerald let her weapons clatter to the ground, and closed the gap between them.

What the fuck was wrong with Penny now?

When Ruby took position and brandished both halves of Crescent Rose, Penny had thought she was combat ready. But when she prepared herself for Ruby's first move, a major discrepancy was brought to her attention—

Namely, that all of her calculations using Ruby's previously recorded combat data were crashing. None of them lined up when she tried to apply her simulations to the Ruby in front of her. Even taking in Ruby's morphed semblance, the dissonance was too drastic for Penny to make sense of.

According to her database, Ruby's most probable first move would be to rush forward with Crescent Rose and connect a heavy, two-handed swing to knock Penny off balance.

Except that didn't make sense because Crescent Rose wasn't a two-handed weapon. Wait, no, yes it was? Because Crescent Rose was a [sniper rifle] REVOLVER/scythe hybrid… wait.

Ruby's file listed her primary weapon as a [sniper rifle] REVOLVER/scythe hybrid. Right. Except Penny's combat data for Ruby listed her primary weapon as a [sniper rifle] REVOLVER/scythe hybrid. Wait… aren't those the same thing? No, because… because—

[sniper rifles] REVOLVERS aren't revolvers.

Wait… this was confusing. Penny continued tracing the extent of this logic loop, trying to find the error her software assured her was causing the simulation to crash. All other senses muted as the error consumed her processing power.

Crescent Rose was part [sniper rifle] REVOLVER. Wait—

Ruby Rose loved her [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle]REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle] REVOLVERS [sniper rifle]—

"Penny, snap out of it!"

Penny's sensors crackled back to life from the shock of sudden stimulus, taking in the sight of blood-red hair and a bronze circlet—

Pyrrha Nikos was grasping Penny by the shoulders, tears bleeding darkly from the gouged out orifices that once resembled her emerald eyes. "Penny, can you hear me—"

"GET OFF ME!" Penny jettisoned all of the aura she could muster into the base of her palms, slamming them against Pyrrha's chest. The force of it reverberated through all of her fingertips, shattering a few of the polymer ligaments in Penny's hands. But what mattered was that the double-palm strike did its job, knocking Pyrrha—

Knocking Ruby all the way to the other side of the training hall, blasting her partially through the wall as the impact carved a crater through the stone with the burst of a thunderclap.

"RUBY!"

Every ounce of aura Penny had left she poured into her legs, sprinting to pry Ruby out of the cartoonish silhouette her body was embedded in. If Ruby was conscious, she might have made a joke about that, but she wasn't conscious, and Penny's biometric scanner was frozen for some reason so she couldn't verify if Ruby had aura or a pulse orororororororororororororor—

Syntax error detected.

A syntax error. Ruby might be dead, and her HUD was warning her about a syntax error. If she could do so without jeopardizing Ruby's safety, she'd smash her own fist into her face and rip the error out herself.

"Ruby, no, no no no no! Wake up! Please!" She begged, she pleaded, she even tried praying! None of it did anything. She scratched at her eyes, hoping against all logic that the action would (somehow) magically kick her other sensors back online—

But that didn't do anything either.

Penny had never wanted to be human more than in this very moment, if only so she could cry and see actual tears stream down her face instead of fuzzy static blotting her vision. So she could truly feel the blessed warmth of Ruby's hand in her own (no semblance required) and feel the soft, pitter patter of her beating human heart. But without Ruby's semblance, and without her biometric sensors, Penny couldn't feel anything. She didn't know anything either. All she could think to do was lift Ruby carefully into her arms to bring to her father and—

Only for Ruby to blink blearily back to consciousness, groaning as she squirmed in Penny's bridal carry. She glanced up. "H-hey." That single word almost killed Penny a second time (it certainly killed every task still running on her brain). "I told you, you hit too hard."

Penny collapsed to her knees, her entire body trembling with tumultuous intensity, as though she had been struck by lightning several times in a row. "R-ruby, I—that…" No single word could encapsulate the wave of relief that crashed over her core, or the violent mix of fear and guilt still roiling underneath. Only one word came even remotely close:

"Fuck."

Needless to say, Emerald and Penny would not be sparring again (together) anytime soon.

Penny was an inconsolable wreck for the rest of the day. She didn't care about going to the library or playing board games or anything else—she just refused to let Emerald out of her sight, somehow even clingier than usual.

And Emerald… didn't hate it. She didn't love it, but… she didn't dislike having Penny drag her back to her new room and tuck her into the seductive comfort of her canopy bed.

"Are you sure I shouldn't get dad?" Penny asked for the umpteenth time, sitting attentively by her side as though Emerald was wasting away on her deathbed. "I don't care if he's busy, he can spare a few minutes for a medical exam."

"I told you I'm fine, Penny." This would be sweet if it wasn't so unnecessary. "You shattered my aura, maybe bruised a rib or two. Nothing I haven't handled before."

"Like on your field missions?"

Glass and fire scratched feverishly at the back of Emerald's mind. "Something like that…"

"Well, okay—but you let me know the moment something is wrong!" Penny pressed. "It's bad enough that I hurt you, but if I hurt you enough to leave lasting damage…" She trailed off, scratching at her gloves furiously enough to tear through the fabric. "I don't know what I'd do with myself."

Lasting damage, Emerald thought, and she couldn't help but compare it to Penny's own predicament.

If only she knew.

"You could tell her," Ozpin interjected.

Well, look who was finally done giving Emerald the silent treatment.

"Emerald… quite frankly, I had nothing to say to you until now," Oz deadpanned. "Last night… it put me in a dark place of mind. One I haven't let myself sink to in a long time. It wasn't easy to drag myself out of it."

It wasn't that bad… in the long scheme of things, it was a rather tame experience—

"The fact you consider whatever last night was to be 'tame' makes me want to both slap you and hand you over to child services simultaneously."

I'm a legal adult, Oz—

"Besides the point and irrelevant," Oz cut her off. "Regardless, I think we have played passively for far too long, even by my standards. We need to make some more proactive decisions. Catching Penny up to speed is our best course of action."

Emerald thought the next move was supposed to be convincing Cinder to turn on Salem. What happened to that plan?

"What plan?" Ozpin asked incredulously. "I was already on the fence about it with what little I did know about Cinder. But after last night…" He sighed. "Emerald, face it. She's exactly where she wants to be, and exactly where she belongs—"

"Fuck off!"

Ozpin fell silent—

And Penny froze. "Ruby?"

Shit. She said that out loud, didn't she?

"Sorry, Penny," Emerald said quickly, shooing Oz back to the edges of her subconscious. "That wasn't for you, I just… got lost in my head for a minute."

"You aren't hearing voices, are you?" Penny guessed quickly (and shockingly close to the truth).

"No, I'm not hearing voices." Technically not a lie (only one voice; singular not plural).

Penny's rambling was undeterred by Emerald's assurances. "Any headaches, nausea, or dizziness? If so, you MIGHT HAVE A CONCUSSION, RUBY! I'll get my father—"

"Stop, calm down." This girl was too much, sometimes. "I'm fine, really. I just… I just need some rest is all."

Penny squinted at her skeptically, refusing to sit back down all the way, still primed and ready to leap out the door and towards her "father's" workshop. "You're certain?"

"Yes," Emerald groaned, laughing lightly at how ridiculous she was being. "I'm fine."

Penny hummed and sat back down. "I've got my eyes on you. My sensors are back online and I'm not afraid to use them."

Emerald shook her head in disbelief; why was Penny taking this so seriously?

"Honestly, I'm a little more worried about you, Penny." Penny froze, but Emerald continued, "You had another episode or something, right? Shouldn't we tell Salem and your dad about it and get you checked out?"

Penny struggled to maintain eye contact. "We don't need to bother them with something like that. Dad especially is… is really busy." She crossed her arms to her chest, trying to stop herself from picking at her gloves anymore. "He doesn't have time for me, anyway."

Ignoring the weird double standard of that (where, for some reason, "Ruby" was important enough for Watts to have time for but Penny wasn't), Penny was still ignoring the core issue. "What even happened, exactly? Before you chucked me through a wall, I mean."

Penny winced. "I… I hit some sort of error in my software systems. And some other, less technical issues happened, too."

Emerald narrowed her eyes at Penny's odd word choice. "What does that mean—"

Penny's door slammed open, and strolling on through like she owned the place—

Was Cinder.

"Emerald, you're late," Cinder said, scoffing as she took in Penny's décor. "What are you still doing here?"

Shit. She'd forgotten Cinder wanted her to stop by earlier tonight (which was presumably now). "Sorry, ma'am. Sparring made me lose track of time—"

"I don't want your excuses, I want you off your ass." Cinder turned on her heel and back out the door. "I've waited for you long enough."

Not wanting to exasperate whatever punishment she was going to receive, Emerald quickly wrestled her way out of Penny's bed, even as her sore body stung from the sudden motion.

Before she could fall in line behind Cinder, though, Penny stood in her way. "I thought you still needed rest. Are you sure you're healed enough to move around?"

Emerald waved away her worries and walked around her. "I told you, I'm fine. Besides, I'm about to get a whole bunch of rest, if you know what I mean."

Penny grimaced. "Unfortunately, I think I do…"

Despite Penny's clear reluctance, the fussy woman still let Emerald pass and join Cinder back in the hall. However, she still yelled out, "Be careful tonight, please!"

Emerald chuckled in response, but she noticed Cinder's glare and stifled the sound quickly. "Apologies, ma'am. Still have to keep up my cover, you know?"

If Cinder thought her excuse was acceptable, she didn't voice it. However, after they made it a bit further down the hall, she asked, "What was Salem's new doll blathering about? Did you hurt yourself or something?"

Emerald froze mid-step. Was Cinder… worried about her? The thought made her chest squeeze delightfully. "Oh, nothing much. We sparred a bit and she shattered my aura. And maybe a rib or two…" she trailed off, awaiting Cinder's reaction.

And, disappointedly (but not entirely unexpectedly) all Cinder did was hum absently. "I see."

Thinking that was the end of their conversation before returning to Cinder's room, Emerald was surprised when Cinder hooked her arm around Emerald's shoulder, causing her to flinch as Cinder's elbow grazed her injuries.

"Well, no need to worry about your aura tonight, Emmy. Because from now on, when you're done babysitting that puppet…" She leaned in close, whispering huskily into Emerald's ear. "I expect you to turn your aura off."

It took a few moments for Emerald to process exactly what Cinder was saying. When she did, the emotions churning in her stomach were not arousal. But… as she took in the beautiful sight of Cinder's toothy grin and the way her Grimm hand latched possessively around her waist…

Emerald reached into her own mind with the sharp scalpel of her semblance and used it to shear off those unnecessary distractions from her stomach. So maybe, just maybe, unlike last night... she actually might enjoy the pain that was to come.

As Penny sat alone in her room, absently scanning the contents of some books she had borrowed from the castle's library, she struggled to maintain her focus on the words inside, instead of the shape of Ruby's pained expression as she trailed after Cinder like a love-struck puppy.

Those strange, intrusive thoughts she felt the other day kept pricking at her mind, projecting images of Cinder clawing at Ruby's hips, dipping her hands under her shirt and drifting down to her—

Penny snapped her book shut. Reading was clearly not working as a distraction. Regardless of her own… personal feelings towards Ruby, it wasn't her place to interfere in Ruby's love life—

Even if Cinder was a wildly rude, obnoxious bitch.

Penny flinched at her own thoughts; even if she swore once earlier after sparring, it was still extremely new and uncomfortable to her. It was also heavily uncalled for, and she chastised herself for such crassness.

I mean, sure, she barged into my room without asking and dragged Ruby away even though she still needed to rest, but… but…

But… what, exactly? What were Cinder's redeeming qualities? Penny had only interacted with her twice in two days, and she already felt an emotion for her she had never felt for anyone before:

Hate.

Hate wasn't a feeling she was used to, but recognizing the unpleasant sensation was surprisingly easy. If she had to describe it… it was like rust infecting her veins, jagged and ugly and wrong. Penny wasn't supposed to feel things like this. She didn't want to feel like this. But she did—

And it was all Cinder's fault.

While the severity of these feelings was still baffling to Penny, she couldn't say she disagreed with all of them. But she didn't like how her thoughts would sometimes turn to pushing Cinder away so Penny could be the one to grab Ruby by her waist, caress her skin, and do… intimate things. Even if Ruby's new semblance sparked phantom sensations all over body, and that warm tingly sensation in the lower reaches of her metaphorical stomach would sometimes resurface when she thought about her too hard, that didn't make those feelings right.

And that one word kept popping back into her head, too: worthy. Worthy of what, exactly? Of Ruby? Worthy of holding her, kissing her, loving her—

She slouched onto her canopy bed, using the sheets to hide her blushing face. Everything was so… confusing with Ruby now, in ways Penny had never anticipated.

As she picked herself up from the bed (hoping a different book would distract her from what Ruby looked like without her crop top), Penny noticed a discrepancy in the corner of her HUD. On the other side of the room was a standing mirror. That on its own was not unusual. What stood out to her, however, was when she caught sight of herself—

And the color of her eyes.

Instead of the bright, verdant green she normally associated them with, there was a reddish tint to the rims, and a swirl of a more sickly, pale green spilling into her irises. With a thought (and a single command to one of her subroutines), her eyes blipped back to the shade of whole green they were supposed to be. Though, it was odd that the colors changed on their own to begin with…

Oh well. Just another glitch to mention to her father (whenever she next had the chance).

She turned away from the mirror to pick up another book, not wasting another thought on the anomaly for the rest of the night. But that didn't stop her thoughts from straying back to images of Ruby and Cinder—

And for her eye colors to shift all over again.