Chapter Text
Penny Polendina was a woman on a mission.
(Or, well, technical woman. A robot woman. That counts, right?)
But that didn’t matter, and Penny shook her head, jolting back to the task at hand. She stood on the highest building she could find in Vacuo, some sort of lighthouse tower for airships, looming over the rest of the city. The railing she was standing on now creaked under her weight, dilapidated and rusted. But it would do.
She closed her eyes, HUD filling her senses. Concentrating, she reached through her mind and retrieved the file that had Ruby’s DNA on it, provided to her when she had gotten her Huntress license back in Atlas.
That felt like ages ago.
Scanning for matching DNA, the monitor in her mind went, sounding suspiciously like Rhubarbs voice. Penny rolled her eyes internally - she was going to have to talk to Rhubarb about changing her settings back to default later.
Match found.
Penny’s eyes jolted open, her metaphorical heart soaring out of her chest. There was a match. Ruby was here, in Vacuo, here right now! Penny hadn’t dared to hope for anything, considering the odds were fairly slim, but she had gotten a slight inkling team RWBY and team JNR would have made their way to the last safe bastion on Remnant. And what good luck that was, huh?
Penny silently thanked the Gods for their kindness, before she took off into the air, following her internal map down the winding streets of Vacuo. People paid little mind to the streak of green in the air above them - Vacuo was a strange place after all, things like that happened pretty often - and Penny let the wind blow past her face, relishing her face finally being clear of strands of hair. She had to admit - she hadn’t been too keen on the haircut at first, but it certainly turned out to be more convenient.
Her internal map stopped, and Penny landed on a sloped rooftop, taking in the sights. She had landed in a plaza of some sort, sequestered away in the main district. People loitered about the area, worn sandstone underneath their feet ringing out with the clacking of heels. The fountain in the center sputtered out brackish water, most likely having not been cleaned in a while. Lining the corners, vendors shouted out their goods and prices, waving signs to attract customers.
But Penny wasn’t interested in all of that. No, instead, her gaze had zeroed in on a woman, standing in the middle of the crowd, draped in red and gray, hair cropped short, speaking to someone next to her and pointing at a brochure.
Even with how much her appearance had changed, Ruby Rose still moved the exact same way. Penny would recognize those excessive hand motions anywhere.
Unable to hold herself back, Penny leaped from the roof, tumbling into a flower bed below. “RUBY!!” She shouted, waving her hands.
Ruby looked up from the flyer she was looking at, silver eyes twisted up in confusion. Her brow softened, though, when she looked to her left, and met Penny’s eyes. Her hands went limp, the brochure fluttering to the ground below.
“...Penny?” Ruby murmured.
Penny let out a cry of half-excitement, half-relief, shoving through the crowd towards her. Ruby’s breath stuttered, and she began to stagger forward to meet her in the middle, her teammates behind her confused as to what she was looking at. Penny cheered, waving her arms again, and Ruby’s pace picked up, breaking out into a sprint, face twisting into a smile as tears ran down her face. “PENNY!!” She screamed, boots scraping against the stone.
They collided in the middle, the two of them tumbling down towards the ground in a heap. Ruby’s arms latched tight around Penny’s waist, so tight that Penny was sure that if she had lungs, she wouldn’t be able to breathe right now. Ruby’s face was wrinkled with tears and snot, running down her face, strands of black hair sticking up everywhere from the static coming off of Penny. She had a new scar over her eyebrow, which puckered up with the wrinkling of her brow. It was kind of cute. “P-P-Penny-” Ruby warbled, hugging her tighter. “I - What - how? How?!” She sobbed.
“I don’t know,” Penny laughed breathlessly, sure that if she could, she’d be crying too. “I got lucky, I guess?”
“Don’t SAY that!” Ruby exclaimed, punching Penny’s shoulder weakly. “You’re here, you’re - that’s not - I -”
“I missed you too.” Penny murmured, which only made Ruby cry even harder. Penny wrapped her arms back around Ruby in response, burrowing her head in the crook of Ruby’s neck, and closed her eyes.
She had found them.
She was finally safe.
Penny didn’t register everyone else's arms around her until her HUD flashed yellow in warning at an abnormal pressure around her chest. Nora’s arms were clasped tightly around her, squeezing so hard that Penny could feel the gears inside of her popping, and everyone else’s grips were fit to do the same. “Everyone, you’re crushing me.” Penny eked out. The rest of team RWBY and team JNR backed away, everyone’s faces in various states of shock and disbelief.
“Penny, you’re-” Jaune choked up at the end of his sentence, unable to continue, and Blake took his hand to comfort him. “How?” He managed to warble out.
“It’s a long story.” Penny replied, standing up. “I’m sorry it took me so long to contact you, I-”
Penny stopped. Scanning the group, she could see everyone’s faces, all twisted up in shock and happiness, but a familiar face was missing, a tuft of brown hair absent from the group. She craned her neck to look behind them, wondering if he was simply hiding behind the others, but there was no one she recognized behind them.
“...Where is Oscar?” Penny asked.
Immediately, she realized that was the wrong thing to say. Everyone stiffened up, looking away, each of them looking some variation of sad, confused, or angry. Penny blinked, turning back to look at Ruby, who’s silver eyes were upturned in a quiet kind of grief. She recognized that expression - it was the same one Ruby wore when talking about Pyrrha. “Oh.” Penny realized, putting two and two together. “I’m sorry for your loss.” She said, taking Ruby’s hand.
“No, it’s not that,” Ruby quickly replied, pulling her hand away, much to Penny’s surprise. “He’s fine, it’s just…”
Weiss placed a hand on Ruby’s shoulder protectively, pulling her up. “You’re not the only one here with a long story.” She said, ice in her voice. “We’ll fill you in later.”
“Y-yeah.” Ruby perked up at that, plastering her ‘leader face’ back on and turning to look at Penny again. “We - oh, we’ve gotta tell Qrow! Oh man, and Theodore too-”
“Headmaster Theodore.” Weiss corrected.
“He’s technically not our superior anymore.” Yang butted in. “We’re out of school - or at least, some of us are.” She cast Ruby a teasing look, who flushed red, shoving her sister’s arm in response.
“Hey, I’ve essentially graduated!” Ruby laughed, dragging Penny forwards in the direction of Shade Academy. “Come on, we’ve gotta find Qrow!”
Qrow took Penny’s return as she expected him to - mildly surprised, internal confusion, and muted happiness. Together, the group walked into the dark sandstone halls of Shade Academy. A dark-skinned Huntress by the name of Sherri Tza introduced herself as the dean of student life, and Headmaster Theodore’s right-hand man (or woman, in her case) and took them up the elevator to his office.
Ruby hadn’t stopped talking since they had met up, yammering on about everything she had seen in Vacuo, from a lantern festival, to something as minor as a food truck that served shrimp with ketchup (a food combo Penny would have found gross if she could eat) Apparently, they had only arrived in Vacuo about a week ago, which made Penny’s meetup with them even more lucky than it already was. If Penny was religious, she’d probably be on her hands and knees right now thanking the Gods, but considering what she had heard about them, she figured they probably weren’t worth it. Some other things had happened too, including the infamous Ali B and his gang The Forty Hands all getting apprehended by some unnamed vigilanties, which Penny was grateful for (she had enough on her plate to worry about smaller criminals, and it was comforting to know the people of Vacuo could take care of themselves) There had also been what appeared to have been a meteor strike nearby, which Penny bashfully reported was actually her when she fell from Atlas, which Yang and Nora found hilarious.
The elevator doors opened, cutting Ruby’s story about how they met Sherri short, and the group walked out. The hallway was small and cramped, lit by several weak yellow lamps. Dusty windows lined the walls, and Penny got the distinct sensation of being in some kind of abandoned church.
Sherri knocked on the door at the end of the hall. “Enter.” A voice boomed from the inside. She opened the door, and the group all walked in.
Theodore was both exactly what Penny expected and not what she had pictured at all. He was tall, evident even as he was sitting, with dark hair cropped short, sides almost completely shaved off. He was fairly built too, checkered vest straining against the sinews of his arms. A silver cape was draped over the mahogany chair behind him, and his hands were encased in red gloves, embroidered with Dust. His dark eyes were piercing, locking in on Penny as soon as she stepped in the room. Penny would have swallowed if she could, but she opted to look down at the floor instead, bracing herself for a very stern and no-nonsense interrogation.
“Ah! You must be Penny!!”
Penny barely had time to react before her hand was crushed in a firm handshake, wires and gears creaking under the sheer force of Theodore’s grip. She blinked, confused, before he laughed loudly, voice booming across the hall. “I’ve heard so much about you from James! It’s nice to finally meet you!”
Well. That certainly was… something.
“How did you know I was here?” Penny asked, gingerly wrenching her hand away from Theodore’s grasp.
“Oh, I didn’t.” Theodore laughed again, turning back to his seat. “I was under the impression you were dead. But I’m glad you ended up alive again!”
“Anyways,” Qrow cut Theodore off, raising a calloused hand. “I’m fairly sure that Penny didn’t come here just for a friendly chat.”
“Right.” She stepped forward, ignoring all the eyes on her, staring straight at Theodore. “...You were right, I was destroyed.” She began. “But a lot more happened after that.”
When she’s finished recounting her experiences in Atlas, the room’s atmosphere is tense. Theodore’s brow is lined, his hands folded under his chin. Ruby’s face is filled with shock, and the rest of the group seem to be the same way, save for Nora, who looked strangely… pensive. A bit uncharacteristic for her.
“I can’t believe James would do such a thing.” Theodore said finally.
“I can.” Qrow grumbled, the rest of the room turning to look at him. “You… you didn’t talk to him during those final days. He was inconsolable.”
“But… all those people are stuck up there.” Weiss breathed, icy blue eyes filled with a mounting horror. “Winter’s stuck up there!”
“It sounds to me like she doesn’t mind all that much.” Ren pointed out.
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Weiss snapped back.
“I’m just saying that she seemed to be in full support of Ironwood.” He replied.
“Winter wouldn’t do something like that, she’s just - she -” Weiss trailed off, tears filling her eyes. Blake put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her, and Weiss leaned into it, burying her face in the crook of Blake’s shoulder.
“What do we do?” Jaune asked. “We - we can’t just leave Atlas like that up there.”
“He’s right.” Nora said, stepping forward. “If people are getting hurt up there, we have to stop it.”
“But how the hell are we going to get up to Atlas anyways?” Yang pointed out. “I doubt an airship would survive the launch.”
“Atlas aside, your mission shouldn’t change.” All eyes turned to Sherri, leaning against the door. “We recruited you to help defend Vacuo and Shade Academy until we found a more suitable holding place for the blueprints.”
“Wait -” Penny cut her off, stepping forward. “What blueprints?”
Jaune looked at Ruby, who looked at Qrow, who sighed, rubbing his temples. “Theo, can you pull up the schematics?” He asked.
Theodore obliged, dimming the room and pressing a button under his desk. The floor beneath Penny hissed, HUD reading that something was coming out of the floor, and she took an involuntary step back, eyes widening. A small platform ascended from the hole below, worn pieces of blue paper lain out on it. Blueprints, Penny realized.
“What are these?” She muttered, leaning in closer to look.
“Maps for the catacombs underneath the city.” Theodore began. “Back when the city was first being created, the King of Vale and my great-great-grandfather worked together to create an elaborate system of tunnels that ran underneath and out of Vacuo in case of an emergency.”
“If the Grimm overran the place during construction, the builders would have somewhere to go.” Qrow interjected, leaning against the desk. “Considering what happened to a lot of the other places that weren’t completed, I guess it seemed like a good idea to them at the time.”
“But once the city was completed, they never filled it in.” Theodore continued, leaning forward in his chair. “We sealed it off for safe-keeping, but if the big one gets her hands on it-”
(“Who’s the big one?” Penny whispered to Ruby.)
(“Salem.” Ruby mouthed back.)
“-She could easily bypass our defenses, and completely destroy the city with minimal effort.” Theodore finished. “Not to mention, it exposes our biggest weakness - The Relic’s Vault.” The room went quiet at that, the implications of that sentence sinking in. A quick and inconspicuous route to the Vault would be devastating if Salem got her hands on it. “We’re filling in the tunnels as we speak, but there’s only so much we can get done in a short amount of time. At the pace we’re working at, the tunnels would take almost a year and a half to be completely blocked off.”
“Ah.” Penny said. “That does sound like a problem.”
“I received a tip that Salem is moving to attack, most likely during the upcoming charity ball, where our defenses will be spread the thinnest.” Sherri interjected.
“Which is why we should just cancel the event in the first place -” Weiss interrupted, in the tone of voice suggesting that they have had this discussion before.
“-And if we did, we’d basically just be telling Salem that we know she’s here.” Theodore butted in. “I will not have her making me look weak. It doesn’t inspire good leadership.”
“Besides, the party could be the perfect trap!” Ruby piped up, sticking her head out from behind Jaune. “If we know they’re coming, it should make it easier to catch them.”
“...I hate this plan.” Weiss mumbled. Blake patted her shoulder in mock sympathy.
“If you’re up for it, we could really use your help.” Ren interrupted, stepping forward. “It’s fine if you can’t, I know you have a lot of other things to worry about, but you’re a very strong fighter, and more than anything, we’d be happy to have you.”
Penny blinked, turning to look at everyone else in the room, all eyes expectant. Swiveling to her left, she caught Ruby’s eyes, who smiled back at her warmly. A silent reassurance that no one would judge her if she said no.
But who was Penny to turn down her best friend?
“I’ll do it.” Penny said. There was a nod of agreement throughout the entire room, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Yang pump her fist in celebration. “I-If that is alright.”
“It’s more than alright!” Nora exclaimed, jumping on Penny to give her another gear-crushing hug. “It’s awesome, actually!”
“Welcome back Penny.” Blake laughed.
Penny looked at the gazes of all of her friends - all of the people she had yearned and longed for when she was stuck up in Atlas - and smiled.
It was good to be home.
(But one gaze was absent, and she could feel it in the pits of her proverbial chest.)
“I never thought Ironwood would go that far.” Weiss sighed, leaning back against the couch. After their meeting with Theodore and Sherri, the group had retired to a house they were renting, tucked between two shabby, run-down buildings. The house was dusty, and a lot less clean then the ones she had stayed in at Atlas, but it also felt more cozy. Much more real and lived in.
“I can.” Blake murmured, taking a sip of water. “He always had those kinds of tendencies.”
“But not THAT far!” Weiss exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “I mean - I didn’t agree with what he was doing, but I - I don’t know, I just thought he’d… he’d still have morals or something.”
“No, he has morals.” Ren interjected. “The problem is that he’s got the wrong ones.”
They continued discussing Atlas’s state of affairs, but Penny couldn’t get the question off of her mind. She had seen how the group had dodged it earlier, and knew they would probably continue to do so if she didn’t just ask outright. But Penny always felt weird about doing that, but at the same time, she just had to swallow her fear and -
“What happened to Oscar?”
The room went dead silent.
Penny turned back to face the team, dual gaze looking somewhat downcast. “...I asked earlier, and you said we’d talk about it later. But now it’s later, so I -”
“N-no, it’s fine.” Everyone seemed just as surprised as Penny was to see Ruby speak up, seemingly having aged ten years at the mention of her missing friend. “It’s just… a bit hard to talk about.”
“Yeah, not like he made it any easier on us.” Yang muttered. When Penny gave her a weird look at that strangely venomous comment directed towards someone she knew Yang considered as a friend, Yang sighed, leaning back against the couch. “He… he’s not the same person you knew.” She replied, closing her eyes. “He changed.”
“What happened to him?” Penny repeated.
Ruby took a deep breath, as if to steel herself, before beginning. “He… you remember when we split into groups at Atlas?” When Penny nodded, Ruby continued. “Well… after you left our group, a Grimm pulled our ship down. Turns out a bunch of Grimm were all tracking him across the city, and eventually he…” Ruby swallowed, blinking rapidly. “He ran into an ambush to get me out safely.”
“Oh.” But something wasn’t right. “But you said he wasn’t…?”
“He didn’t die.” Ren continued, seeing Ruby’s distressed state. “Salem captured him. We were under the impression that he had died, so the next time we saw him, we didn’t even recognize him.”
“His hair was white.” Ruby butted in, regaining her composure. “He looked a lot skinnier, and he had this mask over his face so we couldn’t see him.”
“But why would he need that?” The answer dawned on Penny before anyone could answer, and her face fell. “...Oh.”
“We still don’t know why he was fighting for Salem.” Nora continued. “It seemed like he was being controlled by her, but at the same time…”
“Is he… still with Salem?” Penny asked.
“No.” Ruby replied. “He… we got him back, after a fight at Vale a few months back. I knocked his mask off and…” Ruby trails off, biting her knuckles. “His face was just… just covered in Grimm, Penny. It was like Cinder’s arm, but… but everywhere , and I-”
Ruby’s breath hitches, overcome with emotion, hands dug into the fabric of the couch violently trembling. Yang sits down next to Ruby, putting an arm protectively around her shoulder, and Ruby inhales deeply, breath shaking, which Yang takes as her cue to pick up the story. “Ruby knocked some sense into him with her silver eyes,” She explains, rubbing comforting circles on Ruby’s back. “He was out for a bit, then woke up, and stayed with us for a few months. But after Cinder failed to get the Beacon relic, he just… got up and left.”
“He left?” Penny exclaimed in disbelief, taken aback by the turn of events. “But why?”
“That’s the thing, we don’t really know.” Blake butted in, stepping forward. “He left us a tiny note, and then just… radio silence.”
“Do you have the note?” Penny gingerly asked. Blake nodded, moving into the other room to grab it. While she was gone, Penny sat down next to Ruby, who seemed to have calmed down. “Are you okay?” She asked quietly.
“I- no.” Ruby mumbled. “I’m sorry, I should be calmer about this, but it’s been almost three months and we don’t know where he went and I -” Penny placed her hand over Ruby’s trembling palm, and Ruby exhaled, steadying herself. “...I’m really worried.” Ruby breathed. “I just want to know if he’s okay.”
Blake came back into the room, holding a small slip of torn paper. Penny picked it up, gingerly examining it. Her scanners indicated traces of Oscar’s DNA, dating back two months and twenty-six days, meaning the note was probably legitimate. Blinking her HUD away, Penny squinted, reading the jagged handwriting.
Hi everyone,
I’m sorry this is so abrupt, but I’ve got to go get the rest of my team. Please don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay. You have your own mission, so don’t bother coming after me. Sorry.
-Oscar P.
Penny blinked, mouth hanging slightly open. “That’s it?” She exclaimed incredulously, turning the paper over, looking for anything, any kind of addendum. “That’s all he wrote?”
“Yeah.” Jaune muttered, folding up the note and sticking it in his back pocket. “And that’s the last we’ve heard from him.”
“Who are the teammates he’s talking about? Aren’t you -”
“Like he said, we don’t know.” Yang cut Penny off, standing and crossing her arms. “He went off a while ago, and we haven’t seen him since.”
“Have you looked?” Penny asked, standing up.
“We’ve tried - but he’s well and truly vanished.” Ren admitted. “Closest we got was some security footage of a boy who only sort of looked like him - and that was months ago.”
“Oh.” Penny looked down at her black boots, a swooping sensation running through her. Oscar leaving with little to no fanfare was… troubling to say the least. But there was more troubling her than just that. Looking around the room, she could see everyone’s expressions, tight and withdrawn. But everyone all had a different look in their eyes, like there was something each of them wanted to say about the situation, but just… wouldn’t.
Couldn’t.
It would seem there was more to the situation than met the eye.