ALL SYSTEMS ONLINE.

She doesn't wake up immediately, instead each system flashing into awareness one by one. She can feel an arm, then a leg, and soon there are flashing words behind closed eyelids that quickly fall away as she opens her eyes for the first time.

There's a man leaning over her, face frozen before he's smiling, brightly, eyes lighting up. There's another man to the side, face stern as he looks at her but there's something in his eyes that she thinks is almost an echo of the same happiness in the first man's eyes.

They tell her later their names. The first man is Dr. Polendina, her father. The second General Ironwood. They built her. The first synthetic being capable of generating an aura.

They tell her that her name is Penny and one day she will save the world.

The first few weeks of her life are spent being taught. There's knowledge that's been downloaded into her brain, programmed into her. She knows what an aura is, she knows the different kingdoms and their headmasters, she knows fighting techniques. There is still a lot to learn.

Her father talks to her about people. About the Huntsmen and Huntresses who protect them from Grimm and how she's one of them, even if she's not human and not enrolling at an academy. He talks about the kingdoms and how when she's more prepared he'll take her to all the sights. He tells her about the faunus and the discrimination they face, making sure she knows that they're equal even if others don't see it.

Winter Schnee is assigned to teach her fighting skills. She knows the moves, but her body is awkward and has never fought before. It takes her a few tries to learn how to move her body and swords in such a way that she isn't immediately thrown back, but once she does Miss. Schnee tells her that she progresses faster than any Huntress she knows.

Ironwood doesn't involve himself much with her, merely explaining the reasons why she was built. He tells her that later he will explain more about the war they are facing, of who their enemies are, but that right now she's not ready.

The soldiers are the closest thing she gets to teachers on being human, but it's through watching them that she learns anything. There's no one to directly teach her how to mold her expressions into ones that look natural or inflect her voice, even though Ironwood has told her she must learn to blend in among humans. Perhaps they all think she'll learn through exposure.

"I wish to go to the Vytal Festival."

This simple statement leads to a long lecture from her father on how she's not ready to be out among people, let alone participating in a tournament that will be broadcast to all the kingdoms. Penny doesn't understand. They want her to learn how to fight, the Vytal Festival would allow her to practice against other Huntsmen and she's already seen that Pyrrha Nikos will likely be participating. Who better to train against than Miss Nikos? They want her to learn to blend in among humans, wouldn't she do better at this if she could actually interact with more people than her father, Ironwood, Miss Schnee, and the soldiers whose faces are always covered in masks?

In the end, General Ironwood agrees with her. He says yes and her father defleats and she feels an aching in her chest.

"I will be careful, Papa," she promises, smiling brightly if not awkwardly at him because she's still working on facial expressions. He gives her a small smile in return, pulling her close into a hug.

Vale is larger, larger than she ever expected. She's seen the kingdom of Atlas only through windows, kept nearly always within the confines of their military base and forbidden from leaving. This is her first time outside, without soldiers watching her every move (if only because she escaped them), and it feels like her system stutters while trying to process the overload of information.

When someone crashes into her and three other girls appear, all Penny can feel is excitement. She's never talked to people outside the military before!

When one of the girls calls her friend, Penny can barely hope that she means it. And when the girl - Ruby - affirms that they're friends, Penny throws her arms up in pure glee. She's never had a friend before, unless one counts the soldiers or Winter and they're ordered to spend time with her.

Penny isn't stupid, she can tell that the other three girls think her strange and weird and want to move away but it's okay. She knows she doesn't fit in among humans, that she's yet to blend in the way Ironwood wants her to, so she's not hurt by what others think and even if she were it wouldn't matter because now she has a friend.

She is lectured later, by Ironwood and her father. What were you thinking? You drew attention to yourself, you pulled down a plane. You could have been injured. They could have found out what you are.

The amount of soldiers ordered to guard increases, Ironwood telling her she's not allowed to interact with Team RWBY again - or really anyone before the festival and tournament. Penny thinks this is what sadness feels like.

It takes a lot of effort to avoid Team RWBY. Everytime she sees Ruby she wants to yell and run over to her, but every time she remembers Ironwood's orders and bows her head and slips back to the Atlas soldiers. Ironwood knows better than her. She shouldn't interact with them. She doesn't fit in and they'll find out and she's afraid of how they'll react when they do.

Would they be scared of her? Would they tell her they would never be friends with a robot? Would they say she isn't real?

Afterward, Penny looks back and feels elated that she told Ruby. She feels like she's walking on air. At the moment, she'd only felt terror and anxiety and a worry that she would lose her only real friend but Ruby was her friend and didn't care that Penny was synthetic.

Penny's fairly certain that Ironwood and the soldiers know who she was with. Ruby's semblance isn't very inconspicuous. The soldiers give her a lecture about not running away that's really more them pleading at her because she disappears whenever she can. Ironwood gives her a lecture that's more a rant, about how people saw her stop that car and she can't be doing these things out in public. No one can know she's a robot.

She's lucky that Ironwood doesn't ask if anyone does know. He'd ask, she'd like, she'd hiccup, and then Ironwood would be really, really angry.

Penny doesn't know when she started keeping secrets from Ironwood or when she started disobeying him. In the past she'd escaped the soldiers because she hadn't known she was meant to stay with them. Now she did it on purpose. Now she consorted with people Ironwood didn't want her around. Now she'd broken the major rule Ironwood had given her - "don't let anyone find out you are a synthetic being" - and she didn't feel bad about it.

She trusted Ironwood. She trusted that he was right about this war and the military and a lot of things. But he didn't understand that she wanted freedom.

Each match of the festival is exiliterating, even when it's not Penny's match. Ciel has a never ending list of information about the candidates which Penny appreciates and listens to with rapt attention even as her eyes dart all across the stadium field. She pays special attention to Team RWBY and Team JNPR. Ciel agrees with her that they'll be some of the teams making to the later rounds.

Penny wonders if she'll fight Ruby at some point during this festival. She wonders even more if she'll get to fight Pyrrha Nikos. She needs to prove herself her at this tournament, both to better her own skills for the day when she has to save the world and to show Ironwood that she can. Her plan will fail if she can't convince him that she'll be fine in Beacon.

"Salutations, Pyrrha Nikos! It's an honor to finally meet you."

If she weren't about to enter a battle, Penny would be jumping up and down on her feet. This will be such an exciting battle. Penny knew Pyrrha was one of the best huntresses in the academies, who better to test herself against and learn from than her?

"This is going to be so much fun!"

She smiles brightly, missing how out of it Pyrrha looks. She misses how something is wrong, mind focusing only on how to beat Pyrrha and prove herself to Ironwood and finally, finally put her plan to action so she could stay at Beacon.

Penny can't feel pain. She gets signals when damaged, words flashing in front of her eyes about where the damage is and how bad it is, but she can't feel pain. She thinks that's a good thing, even if being a robot means these few seconds feel like years.

Pyrrha's semblance freezes her in place, error messages flashing - SYSTEM FAILURE. SYSTEM REBOOT IN PROCESS. - but by the time her systems are working again, by the time she can move, the swords have wrapped around her. More error messages.

The strings slice through her metal casing, tearing her apart.

She's terrified in a way she never has been before.

SYSTEM DAMAGED.

SYSTEM DAMAGED.

SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IMMINENT.

Her body falls apart, landing in pieces on the stadium floor. There's a moment where she's aware even as her body lies broken, where she stares up at the stadium and wishes she could cry because she's scared and father and Ruby will be so sad and she was supposed to save the world one day.

She was supposed to save the world.

SYSTEM SHUTDOWN