"Salutations Jaune Arc!" The enthusiastic greeting echoed off the walls of the vehicle depo making a blonde boy blink at the ginger haired girl in front of him. Her smile was easily the brightest things in this industrial setting of grey metal and helmeted soldiers, she herself was easily the most colorful thing here with her copper hair, green dress and an evidently sunny disposition.
"Uh… hello Penny," Jaune answered looking at her grin happily, "how are you?" He asked a little dumbstruck at the sheer enthusiasm that emanated from her.
"I'm just swell, thank you." She moved walking beside him, "we're partners today so we'll be sharing escort duty today."
"Oh," Jaune said a little surprised as he walked towards one of the heavy trucks. He was called again for another escort mission transferring material out for Ironwood's Amity project. "I thought I'd be riding with Blake today." He wasn't exactly thrilled to be spending time with a Team RWBY's quietest member, they were both amicable to one another but shared almost nothing in common.
"Blake requested trading shifts so she could join Yang on a contract. I happily obliged." She explained falling into step with him a carefree smile on her cheeks.
Jaune supposed it was definitely an improvement from Blake spending a long cold drive with her nose in a book as he ran the battery in his scroll dry playing games. At least he assumed, her upbeat attitude seemed to suggest just as much but he couldn't remember sharing so many words with Penny before today.
Jaune opened up the back door to the truck stepping up into the back. He held his hand out for Penny to help her up but she ignored it climbing aboard with ease. He closed the double doors and took his usual seat between a couple of crates. "All aboard," Jaune called to the driver to move. The vehicle lurched forward and in no time the dark streets of Mantle gave way to the snowy tundra.
Jaune unzipped the backpack he'd laid at his feet. After a dozen or so of the long boring missions sitting in the back of the trucks with little to no action save for a few occasional Grimm attacks he'd learned to come prepared. He packed everything from a blanket to some snacks and a couple of comic books he'd already read.
"Are you cold?" Penny asked sitting directly across from him. Her hands rested in her lap and she sat perfectly upright compared to the blonde knight slouching back in his cramped little seat.
"Yeah," Jaune confirmed unfolding the blanket and draping it over his legs, "it's always freezing in the back of these trucks and using my aura to stay warm is just wasteful." His breath came out as smoke it was so cold. He almost asked her how she couldn't be cold when he noticed no warm mist emanating from her mouth and nostrils. He'd almost forgotten that she wasn't human, she was a machine.
"Well in that case I will assist you," she announced. Her hair bounced as she stood up with little warning and sat down right next to him.
"Uh," the blonde knight began not quite sure what was happening but stopping himself as he felt warmth emanating from the girl next to him. It was subtle at first but it very quickly grew in intensity, the numbing cold receded from around him. "How?" He started feeling warmth blooming against his body.
"My systems can generate quite a bit of heat, I'm designed to ventilate it through my artificial skin, currently I'm concentrating my cooling systems to my left towards you," she explained smiling at him again as he felt her unnatural heat emanate towards him.
It felt like he was sitting next to a space heater. He didn't say that to her, he wasn't sure what an android like her would find insulting but being compared to a home appliance definitely seemed to be likely. "Thank you Penny," he said sincerely grateful for the warmth.
"My pleasure," she affirmed. A few moments of silence passed between them and Jaune noticed her looking at him. "Can I ask you a question Jaune?"
"Uh… sure," he answered wondering what she could possibly want to ask him of all people.
"What's it like to feel cold?" She asked him bluntly.
"Well it's-uh," Jaune stuttered as he tried to find the words to answer her questions, "it's… really hard to describe," he admitted feeling a little defeated. "Do you not feel cold?" He asked not really understanding how just what she felt.
"I can sense changes in temperature," she explained to him a little apprehensive. "I suppose in a sense I do feel cold in my own way, but I am never bothered by it like you, I never shiver or chatter my teeth, I do not experience it like you."
"I see," Jaune said feeling like maybe he'd upset her. "I guess cold just feels… oppressive? Like emptiness of a sort, it's uncomfortable but sometimes pleasant. That's a contradiction, uh… does any of this make sense to you?"
Penny shook her head no at him, "Not at all, I still do not understand." Her tone remained surprisingly chipper despite his inability to explain the concept of cold to her.
Jaune scratched the back of his head, "I'm not very good with words," he offered a dopey smile to her feeling defeated. Jaune wondered if this was like trying to describe a color to a blind man.
"Thank you for trying Jaune… I am curious to understand more about humans and some things I find rather confusing," she explained to him. "What does warmth feel like?"
"Warmth? It's pleasant most of the time," he found the words coming a little easier, "it feels good… relaxing like… like being hugged… does that explain it?"
"I… I think it does," She said offering him a smile.
The blond knight smiled back happy that his answer was at least acceptable. Sitting next to her in a pleasant comfortable silence with her, he felt her shoulder brush against his as hours slipped by. Conversation came and went between them, usually Penny asked about something like his scroll games or how some of his snacks tasted.
"The candy bar tastes like excrement?" She asked him with a look of obvious confusion on her face. "How do you know?"
Jaune couldn't keep himself from laughing as he forced himself to swallow the rest of the very bad candy bar. "No it's an expression," he told her, "it tastes awful, nothing like real chocolate."
"So what does real chocolate taste like?"
"It's like… it's wonderful… it melts in your mouth and it's warm and deliciously sweet and savory." He explained knowing he couldn't possibly justly describe chocolate to her.
"It sounds wonderful," Penny said her green eyes looking wider than usual.
It is, it's-," a rumble cut the blonde off from his explanation into the wonders of chocolate. The truck bumped up and down, Jaune was knocked against Penny. A speaker in the ceiling crackled to life as the driver spoke up, "we got grimm on the road!"
Jaune sighed standing up from his seat throwing off the blanket that draped his legs. "Guess it's time to do our job," he grumbled actually disappointed that their conversation was interrupted.
Jaune activated his aura before opening the door, even with it, the air was so cold he felt like he'd been cut and he needed a moment to shiver before jumping out. Ice crunched beneath his feet, Crocea Mors hissed at he pulled it free from the scabbard and deployed the shield.
Penny flew out the door, her hair whipping with the harsh winds as she soared over the truck her boots rocketing her towards the danger. Jaune sprinted around the side of the truck finding several dead sabyrs felled by Penny's Floating Array. One of the massive feline bodied grimm charged him swiping its claw only for the blow to be deflected by the shield, Crocea Mors was quick with the repost cutting off a planted leg and sending the beast down for him to finish off delivering a coup de grace.
Jaune rolled and brought his blade up decapitating another. He spun shield raised only for him to look at the snowy field littered with her black grimm bodies turning to black smoke. Penny had easily dispatched over a dozen sabyrs shaming his score of two.
"More on the way!" Penny announced out where dozens of the grimm charged sprinting their way. Floating Array shifted as the blades formed a circle around Penny shifting into themselves to form a number of guns firing green beams of light, cutting down the charging sabyrs.
"I'll take the stragglers!" Jaune said charging out in front knocking one of the vile creatures down with his shield and decapitating it. Penny's lasers were taking out most of them leaving only a handful left for Jaune. In little time the herd began thinning.
"I think we are done here," Penny said observing, "the road seems clear for now." The many blades of her Floating Array shifted back together and returned to her. The rockets on her boots died down and she stepped foot on the snow. "Good work Jaune!"
Releasing a breath Jaune watching the black bodies fade to smoke. "Thanks, we-," he stopped as an electric buzz cut through the howl of the icy winds. Penny dropped to her knees sinking into the ice, her arms fell down to her sides as if chained to the ground.
"Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Jaune," Penny cried spasming uncontrollably, "ru, ru, ru, ru, ru, ru, ru, run!"
The blonde froze for a moment in disbelief, he tried to process what was going on when he felt an unseen force grip and pull at Crocea Mors and his armor. A magnet?
Jaune turned and sprinted towards the truck. Someone planned this, and that meant their troubles could only be beginning. A geyser of snow erupted in front of him giving him a face full of ice, a distant crack of a rifle followed close behind, a sniper. Jaune kept his path jagged and erratic to not give the sniper an easy target as he reached the truck waving to the driver.
"What's going on?!" The driver demanded opening his door and stepping out.
"We're under attack," Jaune explained as a round shattered the window just by the drivers head making him duck as glass shattered everywhere. "Penny's down I need your gun!" He told him sheathing his sword into the shield scabbard and holding his hand out for the soldier's pistol.
The Atlas soldier gave him an odd look, "my gun?!" He asked clearly reluctant to surrender his only weapon.
Jaune grabbed the pistol from his holster not wanting to waste time talking while penny remained pinned and vulnerable. He sprinted back out away from the cover provided to him. He held his shield out covering himself as much as possible towards where he suspected the shooter was.
He felt a round strike his shield, the impact making him stumble. His ear rang from the sound of the impact but he didn't slow as he sprinted clutching the pistol in his hand. Penny was still pinned shaping uncontrollably as if she was having a seizure. He aimed his stolen gun down at the snow beneath Penny and fired, the snow fountaining with every shot. Sparks shot out from beneath Penny and the electric hum died as the ginger haired girl fell down onto the snow.
"Penny!" Jaune cried moving to her side and grabbing her. She appeared unconscious and he pulled her into his free arm and pulled her over his shoulder to run back for the cover of the truck.
Jaune didn't get far before another round struck his shield making him trip. He fell face first into the snow. "Damnit!" He cursed trying to scramble up holding his arm out to shield them activating the hard light dust in his shield to better conceal the two of them.
"Jaune?" He heard Penny whisper from beneath him. He didn't get the chance to answer her when another shot struck his shield. He dropped Penny as the force of the impact knocked him onto his back. He rolled with the fall trying to stay on his feet, he needed to keep his shield up, as long as he could keep his shield up he could protect Penny.
He looked up as a spark flashed in the air right in front of him. "Jaune!" Penny said already on her feet blades dancing. She'd just deflected a bullet with his name on it. "We got more grimm incoming?"
Jane scanned the landscape to see that she was right. BlacK figures again raced towards their position, agile Sabyrs, lumbering Ursai and frighteningly hughe Megoliath. Another shot was cut out of the air by Floating Array. "Enemy located to the east, bearing one forty six at thirteen hundred meters," Penny listed off the location of the sniper as several of the blades shifted into their laser guns releasing a volley of green bolts off into the distance. "Target suppressed!" Penny announced as the grimm closed the distance.
"We need to get out of here!" Jaune cried ducking an Ursai paw and thrusting his sword up into the monster's throat killing it. "Back to the truck!"
Penny nodded as her blades slashed down several grimm while the several lasers kept firing, "I will cover you!" Penny told him as he moved towards the truck. A set of headlight flashed on at him as the truck turned on and rolled their direction knocking away grimm and crushing them beneath the wheels. Jaune grinned hoping that the driver was moving to pick them up but his anticipation quickly melted away as the vehicle swerved away and sped right past them.
"OH COME ON!" Jaune shouted watching their ride roll away. He supposed their driver panicked. Leaving them behind and Jaune dumbfounded. "COWARD!" He cursed moving to run after it as it continued to bulldoze through the grimm leaving a trail of smoking corpses.
"Here!" Penny said grabbing hold of him and pulling him against her body. Jaune stuttered wondering what she was going to do when they lifted off the ground carried by her rocket boots soaring for the truck.
Ice wind stung Jaune's face as they flew and he squinted. The truck struck a Ursai and sent it under the tire, it raised up and tipped falling on its side stopped dead for only a moment as the tusks of a Megoliath rammed into the side sending the truck rolling. It crunched as it rolled across the ice, the sound of twisting metal and shattering glass making Jaune's stomach sink as their transportation became a wreck. The grimm descended upon the truck ripping through the doors and the shattering windows and Jaune knew their driver was dead even if he had survived the crash.
"There goes our ride!" Jaune groaned feeling nauseous at the sight of grimm crawling across the wrecked truck.
"We need to get back to Mantle," Penny said banking around, "at least get CCT coverage and call for help." She explained to him rocketing across the sky speeding back towards the mantle.
"How long will that be?" Jaune asked her clutched in her arms as his nausea worsened from the flight. His airsickness was acting up and he wasn't sure he could keep his lunch down for very long.
"Not too long at this speed," Penny assured him, "just keep your aura-." A sudden jolt interrupted Penny sending them into a spin as they dropped .
The thundering echo of a rifle shot told him everything, that damned sniper. He looked down seeing one of her legs trailing smoke, with no thrust being generated they quickly began losing altitude.
"Here," Jaune said, feeling his stomach drop with them. He pushed his nausea down as he put his hand in hers lacing their fingers as she let him go. He deployed his shield over their heads catching the air as he activated the hard light dust slowing their descent. He held her hand tightly as her one working rocket boot helped guide them back down to the icy ground.
He hit the ground sinking into the snow next to Penny. He couldn't keep it in any more, he retched, hurling out his last meal onto the snow. "If that shooter wants to kill me," he said gasping at the cold air feeling it burn his bile coated throat, "please shoot me now."
Penny inspected her leg looking at the sparking wound in her left leg that left a hole clean through the angle exposing a number of wires and various mechanics. "We are not within sight of the shooter and I haven't detected anyone or anything else within our vicinity." She looked over at the blonde knight down on all fours vomiting, "are you alright Jaune? Can I assist you?"
Jaune shook his head before wiping his mouth and spitting out the remains, "air sickness," he explained, "I've been getting better but that was a hell of a ride… you can do one favor for me though."
"Yes anything," Penny offered.
"Don't tell team RWBY," he begged, "I don't want to have to deal with Yang calling me Vomit Boy for a whole week."
Penny giggled, "Your secret is safe with me."
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CHANGING LOCATION
POV
Sometimes Penny was happy that she was not a human. She did not need to worry about staying fit and exercising, going to the bathroom seemed like it would get annoying and sleep just seemed like a hassle to deal with.
Watching Jaune spew up his last meal and spit it out the apparently awful taste certainly counted as one of those times.
"I can taste that awful candy bar again," Jane said spitting into the snow one last time before standing up.
"We should get moving," she advised, "it will be dark in sixteen hundred hours, you are not equipped to deal with the temperature drop."
Jaune nodded brushing the snow off of him. "Right… which direction?" He asked her looking around the expanse of white around them.
"This way," Penny pointes, "Mantle is currently seventy six kilometers to the southwest bearing two sixteen."
Jaune nodded as he started to walk the ice crunching beneath him. "I really wish I hadn't left my bag in the truck," he sighed regretfully. He looked to Penny keeping pace with him, her eyes scanning the landscape. "Is your leg alright?" He asked her.
"It is damaged," she explained to him, "I can no longer operate my rocket boot but I still have full mobility, it will not slow me."
Jaune nodded, "ok… did you get a look at the shooter?" He asked trying to take stock of their situation.
"I did," Penny confirmed turning to him, a holo display projected from her eye showing the image. A man dressed head to toe in white gazing down the scope of a long barreled rifle, a white balaclava concealing his face as he laid prone partially buried in the snow. "I have not been able to identify him but that rifle is not any model in my database, it is custom built and it shattered through my aura."
"I'm glad he kept hitting my shield," Jaune sighed inspecting the dents on his shield, "is your aura healing?"
She nodded, "slowly, and my power levels are at seventy three percent, how is your aura Jaune?"
Jaune stopped and fished into his pocket for his scroll to check his own aura levels. He frowned, "my scroll is fried," he groaned in frustration dropping it back into his pocket.
"Here I can connect to your aura," Penny explained looking to him linking up to his unique aura signature connecting to it as his scroll would, "you're at eighty six percent," she explained to him.
"Good," Jaune said stepping close to her.
"Jaune?" She asked questioning his sudden closeness.
He set his hand upon her shoulder and she felt her aura pulse with power glowing white. It felt… interesting to her, his semblance connecting to her own aura giving it a jump start as he funneled his aura into her, connecting his soul to hers. Penny did not know what it felt like to be warm, not as real people do, but with Jaune's earlier description she wondered if it felt anything like this.
"That should help," Jaune said pulling his hand away, "if we get into another fight you'll be better prepared."
She looked into his eyes, he gave her a smile and seemed to show he was at ease. "Your aura is protecting you from the elements, you should save it for yourself."
"If we get into another fight I'm going to need you," Jaune told her, "your my best chance of survival Penny."
She nodded to him hearing the sincerity of his voice, he was trusting her to help him through this. Penny smiled at him, "thank you Jaune."
Jaune's eyes widened suddenly at her, "Blake!" He said shock coloring his features.
"Blake?" She asked, "What about her?"
"I was supposed to be doing this escort mission with Blake!" Jaune explained to her, "you switched places with her so she could do a huntress contract with Yang… that sniper knew, he planted that magnet mine or whatever that was for you!"
"That… yeah," Penny agreed connecting the dots, "they had to know our route too."
Jaune nodded, "someone had to relay that information to our shooter somehow," he said pulling away from her to walk again. "Someone is feeding information directly to… whoever it is doing this. Not that knowing this helps us much out here."
"It is another reason to get back to Atlas," she said, "the General will need to know there is a traitor leaking information."
They quickly fell into silence as they hiked, the snowy hills before them looked simple to her but after an hour or so Jaune's pace slowed if only slightly. He voiced no complaints but his breathing was heavy and the cold was clearly affecting him, his aura was keeping him from developing frostbite or hypothermia but it did little to spare him from the discomfort.
"Maybe we should take a break," Penny suggested stopping to scan the area for immediate threats.
"We… don't have... a lot of time," Jaune said stopping to pant despite his protests taking a knee in the snow, "Night is coming and I can't take a break every hour or so."
Penny looked away at the horizon to the spiky haired blonde and frowned, "just five minute... it should help you keep an efficient pace."
Jaune nodded at her, "be honest with me," he said looking back the way they came seeing their footprints fading with the falling snow, "can we make it back in time?"
"We can," she assured him with a smile, "if we can maintain our current pace and keep rest to a minimum I am sure we can get within range of a CCT tower and call for help with several hours of daylight left."
"That's encouraging," Jaune said cracking a grin, "I wouldn't last five minutes out here if it wasn't for you."
"You have been doing well Jaune," she assured him, offering him a hand to help him stand that he took.
"For a human," he sighed.
"I… no I did not mean it like that Jaune," she stammered awkwardly.
"I know," he said giving her a goofy looking smile followed by an awkward chuckle, "I'm just very aware of my limits right now… you haven't even broken a sweat this entire time."
"I don't need to sweat remember? I can expel excess heat directly through my exterior." She explained to him realizing that he'd simply used an idiom.
Jaune laughed, a hearty honest laugh, not a nervous chuckle like she'd heard from him before. "I meant… you're holding up very well, I'm sorry you're stuck dragging my ass through the snow."
"Do not apologize Jaune, you are far from the worst person to share this predicament with, you boosted my aura and now I'm back to being combat ready. You are probably the second best person for this scenario." She explained to him, "Your naturally high aura levels mean you can survive out here for a much longer than most."
"Second huh?" He asked, "who's number one?" He asked curious.
"Winter," Penny explained, "or Weiss, either of them could summon something to fly us out or ride on."
Jaune smirked, "Yeah that'd be nice right now."
Penny nodded in agreement as they continued on their way. Talk was scarce as Jaune focused on his hike as they climbed up and down snowy hills, the flakes falling upon them piled up and occasionally they stopped to brush themselves off of the ice building upon them.
She turned to scan the landscape every five minutes to check for grimm or whoever had attacked them.
"Penny?" He asked seeing that she had stopped after checking.
"Target spotted!" Penny announced her back opening to deploy Floating Array, the blades separated as one morphed into the laser gun firing a single energy burst. Penny watched as the green lasted shot across the landscape striking her target. It exploded, a simple flash in the distance. "Target destroyed." She said simply.
"What was that?" Jaune asked gripping Crocea Mors ready to draw the blade.
"A drone," she explained to him reaching for his hand, "it was watching us, we are being tracked."
"Great," Jaune groaned sarcastically, "I was hoping they just wanted whatever was in the truck."
"We need to move!" Penny urged earning a nod from Jaune as he turned back and ran jogging up the incline. Penny followed behind keeping pace as she kept covering their rear and keeping an eye out.
Her sensors scanned the overcast skies and the horizon as they moved hustling up the side of a hill. Her targeting system marked another drone to the northeast as they crested the hill, another small reconnaissance drone kilometers away. Another laser blast shattered it to pieces.
"Watch out!" Jaune cried as a rapid burst of gunfire echoed through the air.
Penny turned as the knight drew Crocea Mors. Steel claws scraped against Jaune's shield. Canine shaped drones sprinted across the snow appearing from the other side of the hill, white and grey painted mechanical hunters, a parody hounds on the hunt. They didn't bark or howl, they simply charged and attacked with claws and fangs. The rear ranks unleashed bursts of gunfire from shoulder mounted guns as the front ranks closed in for the close kill.
Jaune pushed the mechanical beast off with his shield and thrust the tip of Crocea Mors stabbing the robotic predator between its mechanical eyes. Penny's blades lashed out cutting down several of the drones slicing them into sparking pieces of scrap.
"So mechanical dogs, that's new," Jaune said slicing the head off another and kicking the body away to roll down the snowy hill, copper wires sparking from its neck. "They're not very tough," he commented bringing his shield up as one of the drones fired a burst of submachine gun fire, Jaune blocked the shots as Penny's Floating Array finished it off.
"Come on," she urged him moving down the hill, a fountain of snow erupting behind them as they disappeared behind the hill.
"Looks like our sniper still has it out for us," Jaune panted as they sprinted down the hill together. His boot stuck a rock beneath the snow, he yelled as he tripped and rolled down the hill.
"Jaune!" Penny cried watching him roll down the snowy slope. She sprinted after him her enhanced speed kicking in as she reached him helping him stop.
"Uh," He groaned moving to stand.
"Jaune, let me carry you," Penny insisted turning back to see another flying drone that she quickly shot down with another laser blast.
Jaune shook his head getting the snow off of his hair and eyes. "I'm fine," he insisted, "I'm not hurt, I can still move."
"I know Jaune," she explained, "but we must move faster, I am faster and strong enough to carry you for a little bit."
Jaune hesitated looking up to where the drone she destroyed had been, the smoke already scattered by the cold winds. "Alright," He nodded.
Penny gathered him into her arms and he put his arms around her neck holding on as she sprinted off, leaping forward to clear a several meters of snowy ground before touching down to leap forward again clearing more ground. She clutched Jaune to her as she moved forward speeding across the landscape.
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CHANGING LOCATION
POV
"This is getting old," Jaune grumbled deflecting a claw off his shield and thrusting Crocea Mors into the side of the drone sending it down, "how many of these things are there?"
"We have dispatched twenty so far, not including six aerial reconnaissance drones," Penny informed him scanning the skies and spotting another reconnaissance drone in the sky, another simple blast of the laser destroying it easily enough.
"Stop!" Jaune told her.
Penny turned to him with an inquisitive eye, "Why? Those drones are tracking us and leading these drones to us, we can not let continue to do so."
"Yes, Jaune agreed. "But that's just it, every time we destroy one we run and try eventually fight more, these drones aren't trying to kill us they're trying to soften us up. How's our aura looking? How's your power level?"
"Your aura is at fifty seven percent, mine is at sixty two percent, my power however is at fifty four percent. I have been expending energy in these fights as well as carrying you." She explained.
"Exactly!" Jaune commented, "our auras keeps getting lower and you're losing power, whoever's hunting us is trying to slow and down and wear us out, we're playing into his plan, he has to know where we're heading, if we keep heading straight for Mantle he'll keep ambushing us."
Penny nodded, "so what do you suggest?"
"We're too exposed out here, we need to hide, we need to give whoever's tracking us the slip before trying to make a break for rescue." He explained looking around the landscape seeing little more than ice, snow and rocky hills and mountains. "I just… where can we hide? There's no trees or anything."
Penny smiled, "I saw a cave," she explained, "several kilometers back in the distance, I'm pretty sure it was an Ursai den."
Jaune returned her smile, "sounds perfect, lead the way!l
"Let me carry you again, it'll be faster," she insisted.
Jaune nodded, "alright… just one more time, you need to conserve your power," he stepped close and let her pick him up once more putting his arms around her neck as she turned back in the direction they came and sprinted back.
Jaune couldn't complain too much being carried. The mild wound to his pride from being a literal burden for Penny to carry was nothing compared to the comfort from spending some time off his feet, to rest and admittedly it was warm in Penny's arms. It was still cold and the added speed didn't help but it was indeed an improvement to trudging through the snow.
They cleared the distance in little time before Penny turned them due south towards one of the rocky hills. It took him awhile to spot the cave, it blended well into the landscape and it was a testament to Penny's eyesight that she saw it. It was practically a black dot in the distance but coming closer Jaune looked into the pitch black.
"I do not think we were spotted," Penny said stepping into the cave deploying Floating Array, ice clung to the walls like crystals, faint daylight filtered in through the entrance and Jaune looked down into the dark tunnel.
"Let's stay in the light," Jaune suggested taking a knee to sit on the icy ground, "at least we're out of the wind."
"It is actually slightly warmer in here," Penny informed him, "It should be safe for you to deactivate your aura, let it replenish."
Jaune nodded cupping his hands and breathing into them. They were completely numb and red and he flexed his fingers trying to return feeling into them. "I would pay so much lien just for a mug of hot chocolate right now," he shivered.
Penny turned away from the black of the cave and moved, she knelt down and took his hands in hers holding them. Her hands were warm and he gasped feeling sensation return to his fingers, if felt like thousands of needles stabbing him but he didn't pull away. "What else would you like?" She asked him running his fingers over his hands, helping to return feeling into them.
"Lets see," Jaune said thinking, "I mean… I'd eat those horrible candy bars I had in my backpack… I really wish I'd been able to grab it."
Penny smiled, he had to be starving after hiking far after emptying his last meal into the snow. "If you could eat anything you want, right now, what would it be?"
"Anything I want?"
"Yes anything," Penny said, giving him a warm smile.
"My mom's tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches," he sighed affectionately, "she usually made them when it snowed, my sisters and I would come in after a day of building snowmen and forts and snowball fights, it would warm us right up and we'd be ready to go back outside to play in the snow."
"You would play in the snow?" She asked him curiously.
Jaune grinned releasing a smoky breath between them. He met her green eyes. "Yeah… we had snow coats and mittens and hats my mom knit for us, we didn't get very cold. Snow was special, school was usually canceled for a day or two, everything around home looked different and there were so many things to do in the snow."
She squeezed his hands, the feeling of pins receded as normal feeling returned. "I would like to hear about them," she told him as she continued to hold his hands.
"Their was sledding, where we slide down snowy hills, there was a great hill in a park nearby, kids flocked there with their sleds, we'd build forts and have snowball fights, we'd pack the snow into barriers or dig trenches and make balls we'd throw at each other." He explained unable to keep himself from smiling at the memories. "We didn't even have rules for who won the snowball fight, we just teamed up with our friends and threw them at one another. I had terrible aim, I couldn't hit anything but my older sister Saphron, she was a natural. My sisters would make snow angels, dozens of them, they'd litter our front yard with snow angels."
"What are snow angels?" Penny asked, listening to every detail.
"It's where you lay on your back in the snow and move your arms up and down and legs side to side, it leaves an imprint in the snow that kind of looks like an angel." He explained realizing he'd been gazing into Penny's eyes.
She looked away from him breaking their eye contact to inspect his hand. It wasn't red anymore and he had complete feeling in his fingers. He flexed them pleased with the result. "Thank you," Penny said, giving him another warm smile.
"For what?" He asked.
"For telling me about your mom's tomato soup and grilled cheese, and about playing in the snow… it sounds quite wonderful." Penny explained.
"Well thank you for taking my mind of my worries," Jaune said returning her thanks with thanks. "And for bringing feeling back into my hand."
"Here," Penny said grabbing a corner of her skirt tearing a long strip of cloth off, "this could help keep your hands warm," she explained wrapping his fingers with the cloth.
"Uh, thanks," Jaune said watching her as she carefully wrapped his fingers, "I hope you weren't too attached to that skirt."
Penny shook her head, "I have others just like it, you need this more."
He nodded accepting her response as she wrapped his hands to defend them from the cold once they ventured out hopefully without this hunter on their tail.
"You should get some sleep," Penny suggested, "we will not be here long, but now would be a good time to rest."
"What about you?" Jaune asked her.
"I do not sleep Jaune," Penny reminded him, moving to sit next to his left,"not like you do, I will keep watch while we wait to head back out."
Jaune sighed seeing her point, he was exhausted, he hadn't had anything to eat or drink in hours and his legs felt like they were on fire. "Thank you," he whispered, letting his eyes relax.
"You are most welcome Jaune Arc," He heard Penny say as he leaned against her shoulders feeling her warmth on his left side. His eyelids were heavy and closed as he offered no resistance. His vision went black and his fatigue took hold sending him into a deep dreamless rest
________________________________________________
CHANGING LOCATION
POV
Ruby Rose stared out the bullhead window to the white landscape below. From up here the grimm only appeared at moving black dots, like ants scurrying around a clean white floor. "That's a lot of grimm," she said watching it all pass down below.
She felt a hand touch her shoulder and she looked back at Yang giving her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry sis, it's Penny, she's a powerhouse, I almost feel sorry for any grimm dumb enough to mess with her. And Jaune's not a pushover anymore, he can handle himself."
Ruby nodded quietly giving her sister a smile she didn't feel, Yang was obviously just trying to keep her from worrying but ever since they got the message that Jaune and Penny's truck hadn't arrived as scheduled she had been nursing a bad feeling in her stomach. The last hour had simply been spent on standby waiting for the bullheads to be fueled and loaded up. That hour hadn't been good on her nerves and she wondered if this was how Jaune had felt waiting for her and her team to reach Argus after getting separated on the train.
"We've located the beacon from the truck," the pilot said his voice coming through the bullheads intercom, "adjusting our bearing."
Ruby looked back to the window seeing even more grimm in the distance. She sighed and turned back to the rest of their team.
"Ugh, I can't move very well in this coat," Weiss grumbled looking bulkier than usual in the arctic gear they'd been ordered to wear. Ironwood had briefed them that weather conditions were deteriorating and they should dress for severe weather instead of relying on their auras for protection against the elements. Ruby wasn't exactly happy wearing bulky snow pants and the heavy coat but she kept her complaints to herself.
"Combat skirts aren't appropriate for every occasion Weiss-cream," Yang reminded her from her seat, she adjusted the laces on her snow boots looking far calmer than anticipated.
"It's probably just some grimm or maybe engine trouble," Weiss retorted, "it's probably a whole lot of worrying over some mundane problem."
"If that was true we'd probably be in radio contact by now," Blake interjected sitting rather still in her seat eyes pointed to the floor of the bullhead. "Besides, if they did need assistance they could have had Penny fly back for help by now."
Ruby frowned at that, Blake was the one teammate not trying to make light of the situation, she'd been rather pleased to go off on a contract with Yang, apparently the bounty they'd hunted had been found quite easily drunk in a bar having drunk away the stolen money. Ruby wondered what she was feeling, she was the one originally meant to have been with Jaune.
"I'm just saying there's probably a reasonable explanation to all of this," Weiss responded.
"Yeah," Yang agreed making a fist and popping her knuckles, "and if things aren't then it's Team RWBY to the rescue."
The bullhead descended and Ruby looked outside the window once more. She spotted the truck, dusted with snow and tipped over on its side. The grimm meandering around the crash made her stomach sink, there was no sign of Jaune or Penny anywhere.
"Let's clear a landing zone!" Ruby ordered trying to focus on the task at hand. An Atlas soldier opened the bullhead door bringing his doorgun into position firing a few controlled bursts at the grimm. The chilly wind whipped into the bullhead and Ruby leapt out into a free fall deploying Crescent Rose, she swung the blade into the neck of a Megoliath using it to slow the fall as she ripped its throat open and took off into a burst of petals.
The two other bullheads circled around the door gunners firing on any grimm that approached their position. The rest of her team had already landed and was tearing into the gathered grimm. Weiss's giant summoned knight charged a Megoliath decapitating it with a single blow.
Pink explosions blasted apart a pack of Beowolves as Nora launched grenades from the circling bullhead. Ren was already on the ground moving gracefully from one foe to the other slashing and shooting.
The icy wind carried away the clouds of black smoke from the rapidly deteriorating bodies. In little time the six of them had managed to clear a perimeter around the crash, they turned the weapon to the outskirts of the area. Ruby's sniper rifle boomed with every shot killing a charging Sabyr or Beowolf. The rest of them formed up clearing out the few stragglers at range.
"Look around," Ruby ordered her team as the first bullhead landed deploying the rest of the Atlas soldiers helping to secure their position.
"There's no sign of anyone," Ren said running up looking sullen, "they're not here."
"No one?" Ruby asked, feeling her chest tighten. She collapsed Crescent Rose into its storage mode that she strapped to her waist.
"I took a look inside the broken window of the truck's cab," Ren explained looking away from her, "I saw what was left of the driver, that's it."
Ren didn't offer any further details about the driver which Ruby was thankful for. She turned to the wreckage of the truck. The snow piled up on it told her it'd been there for awhile.
"There's no tracks they could have left," Ruby mused trying to think of their next move the soldiers were already moving to the truck with crowbars, "if they're not in the truck they probably had to get away from the grimm, they might be nearby, maybe one of them was hurt and couldn't move very far or-."
BOOM! Everything went black, heat washed over Ruby. It took her a minute for her to open her eyes, her vision was blurred and it took her a moment to realize she was looking up at the grey overcast sky watching snowflakes dance and twirl falling to earth. Her ears hurt and all she could hear was a faint ringing.
Ruby looked up clutching her aching head. The wreckage of the truck was ablaze, scattered into twisted unrecognizable pieces. Everything around her sounded muted like she was under water.
It took her a moment to realize that she was being dragged away from the burning wreck by her hood. She heard the faint sounds of someone yelling and as her senses recovered she heard it was Ren, he was the one dragging her and yelling. She looked up at him trying to make out his words but her head throbbed with pain.
"Nora!" She managed to hear as Ren stopped to call out for his partner.
"NORA!" He cried cupping his hands around his mouth, the ringing faded and Ruby looked up spotting Nora running towards him.
"I'm alright," Ruby coughed, her mouth tasted like a car exhaust and everything smelled like it too. She sat down in the snow as the Nora ran to him pulling him into a hug.
The front of her snow jacket was burnt the nylon charred. She checked herself finding no wounds despite several punctures. It seemed her aura had protected her from any shrapnel. She forced herself to stand on shaky legs only to feel a strong arm wrap around her. It was Yang.
"Are you alright?" Her sister asked, holding her steady as they walked away from the demolished vehicle. Ruby could only nod silently. She spotted one of the bullheads torn apart by a piece of debris in the explosion.
"Where's Weiss?" Ruby asked her, "And Blake?"
"They're fine," Yang assured her, she spoke calmly and evenly to her, "we were all far away from the truck before it exploded."
Ruby nodded once more. Her senses were recovering, the aches and pains receding as her aura healed her. In a moment she was strong enough to walk on her own as Yang led her to sit in one of the landed bullheads.
"Just rest here for a moment," her sister insisted.
"I'm alright," Ruby insisted looking out at the snowy tundra, "we still need to find Jaune and Penny."
Yang looked into her eyes holding her gaze, "and we will," she promised her, "but rest here."
Ruby didn't understand. She needed to find Jaune and Penny, there were people out there that needed help, the truck had exploded. What if Jaune and Penny were in the truck? No, she didn't even want to think about that, she couldn't. It was only then that she realized that she was shaking. Ruby forced herself to take long deep calming breaths filling her lungs with frigid air and holding it before releasing.
It took her a little bit to calm down, the breathing helped and she listened to the pilot speak tons of technical jargon she didn't understand focusing on the crackle of static and garbled electronic voices.
A clang on the hull of the bullhead grabbed her attention. The familiar pop and crackle of gunfire in the distance.
"Contact!" Someone called and the rattle of return fire answered. Ruby stepped out of the bullhead and grabbed Crescent Rose shifting it into its sniper rifle mode. She laid prone in snow as the bullhead behind her returned to the sky. Ruby looked through the scope of her rifle spotting the shooters.
"Atlesian Knights?" She asked no one spotting the black robotic bodies kneeling in the snow firing off bursts from their assault rifles. They were older 130 models, not top of the line 200s but bullets usually didn't care much about who fired them.
Ruby drew her crosshair over the first and fired shattering it and sending it down to the snow as a pile of scrap. Ruby didn't who had deployed these outdated pieces of scrap, but they had to be behind her missing friends. They could try blowing her up, they could try shooting her, but she wasn't going to stop until she found Jaune and Penny. Her rifle roared again and again kicking up snow and shattering her targets into scrap. Luckily she'd packed plenty of ammo.
"Damned rust buckets," Yang grumbled kicking away one of the Atlesia Knight's heads away with a sigh looking to the bullheads landing to begin evacuating the wounded from the area. The demolished body twitched and sparked dying in the snow helpless.
Ruby nodded surveying the area littered with the shattered mechanical bodies of the Atlesian Knight lying in the snow. The falling flakes burying the pieces wiping away any signs of a fight. The wind was whipping up blowing waves of white with it. They'd wasted enough time clearing out the drones from the landing along with more grimm that'd attracted by the fighting. Though Ruby couldn't see the sun through the dull lead colored clouds she knew it was starting to vanish.
Any clues to where Jaune and Penny had been had either been destroyed by the bomb in the truck or covered by the snow. A beep from her scroll pulled her eyes away from the harsh landscape as she opened it seeing the stern face of General Ironwood looking rather sullen. The image from her scroll was fuzzy, the signal boosters they were using to try to make contact and keep in contact with Atlas could only do so much. Ruby felt her chest tighten knowing that no good news would come from this call.
"Miss Rose," the General began, "I'm afraid the situation is worsening, our weather service has detected a snowstorm approaching the search area," he explained, "I regret to inform you that I am postponing the search."
Ruby took a breath, "they're still out there," she pleaded, "if there is a storm heading our direction that's even more reason to double our efforts and keep looking."
Ironwood averted his eyes from the screen, "Miss Rose I understand your worry and frustration but I think we both can agree we've lost enough people today," he told her, "I want to find them too but there's little chance of that in this storm."
Ruby sighed, she knew he was right, getting more people lost in a blizzard would only be counterproductive to their efforts. But the idea of spending the night warm safe and comfortable when Jaune and Penny were out there lost or worse.
"How much time do we have?" Ruby asked determined to make the most of what little they had.
"There's a freshly fueled bullhead enroute to your location." The General explained. "You'll be the last ones out and I'll give you a half hour to look for them from the skies, after that come back to Atlas, rest and debrief, I'll keep you on standby if the weather improves."
Ruby nodded, it was the best she was going to get. She ended the call and pocketed her scroll. "Listen everyone," she said rallying her team along with Ren and Nora, "Ironwood just told me that the weather is getting worse," she explained, "there's a blizzard heading our direction so he's postponing the search."
"What!" Nora spoke out with evident rage coloring her feature her fists clenched at her sides. "He thinks we're going to leave our leader out here in a snowstorm!?"
Ruby winced she knew Nora wouldn't take this well, "I don't like doing it either Nora, but we can't find Jaune and Penny if we freeze to death."
"So we're supposed to leave Jaune to freeze to death!?" Nora sneered.
"That's not what she meant and you know it!" Yang responded stepping forward.
"We're all worried," Blake interjected, "but we've done everything we can at the moment, Jaune wouldn't want us getting lost or hurt trying to find him."
Nora turned her glare to the Faunus girl. "You barely even talk to him Blake! If it wasn't for Penny you be out there with him right now, it would be you we'd be leaving out in the cold!"
"Nora!" Ren said voice firm but gentle. He put a hand on her shoulder. "You know Blake is right, Jaune would not want us taking unnecessary risks trying to save him, he'd hate himself if anyone got hurt looking for him."
Nora deflated and looked away in defeat. Her eyes were still filled with anger but they were also red and swollen with tears. Ruby stepped up and pulled her into hug holding for a long moment. She squeezed her tightly and let her bury her face in her shoulder. She sobbed quietly against her, Ruby could only imagine just how scared she must be. Losing Pyrrha had to be hard enough but losing their leader would be devastating.
"We're not giving up," Ruby promised her patting her back. "Ironwood promised the minute the weather is clear we can get back to searching, I'll hold him to that. We will find them, both of them."
A cloud of snow was kicked up off the ground behind them as a bullhead descended down opening the doors for them. "That's our ride," Ruby said releasing her, "Come on, we'll try looking while on the flight back, the General said he'd give us half an hour."
Nora nodded wiping her tear stained face as they moved to board the final bullhead. "I'm sorry," she apologized to everyone but she turned to meet Blake in the eye, "I'm sorry Blake."
Blake nodded, "It's alright… I'm worried too."
They all boarded the aircraft together, they took their seat and silence and stared out the window. No one was trying to make light of the situation anymore, no one was in the mood to talk because everyone was thinking the same thing. The unanswered questions kept circling in their minds. Who'd planted a bomb in the truck? Who'd set those Atlesian Knights to attack them? Did they capture Jaune and Penny? Were they even alive?
That last question was unspoken. No one wanted to even consider the idea that their friends might already be dead. The possibility was taboo to them all and no one even considered the reality aloud. It was just too cruel for them to speak.
The bullhead shuttered as wind blasted the fuselage. They wiped the foggy windows and stared down at the landscape. They could barely make anything out from blowing snow kicked up by the wind obscuring everything. It was just white below them swirling with the harsh winds.
The radio crackled as they tried everything they could to get within contact of a Jaune and Penny though his scroll or through Penny's built in communication systems.
Their final half hour came and went with nothing to show for their effort. Their silence held as the pilot turned them back towards Atlas. Ruby rested her head against the cool glass trying to fight fatigue. She hated to admit that she was indeed tired, it felt wrong to her getting to rest away her weariness when she had no idea what kind of hardships her friends were still facing. The explosion had shaken her, and the fighting had been draining in its own right but she couldn't help but feel that it was unfair that she got to rest.
"We got a blip on the tracking beacon," the copilot up front monitoring the equipment announced over the intercom in the back.
Ruby instantly sat up as static through the bullhead's radio crackled through electronically with a familiar voice coming through. "Hello?" It asked.
"Penny" Ruby asked grabbing her scroll linked to the bullhead's radio. Everyone around her shifted to listen.
"Ruby… that...you?" The voice responded and Ruby felt her heart flutter. The radio was full of static garbling the voice and she could only get every other word but it was Penny.
"Is… Ruby?" A second voice chimed in.
"Jaune! Thank the gods you're both alive."
"... we're being...help." Penny's voice was lost in a flood of static.
"We've lost the signal," the operator said.
Ruby couldn't do anything but look at the screen of her scroll as if she could will it to connect with her friends again. "What about the tracking beacon?" Ruby asked.
"We've lost the connection," the operator announced.
"Can we check the area where you spotted it?" She asked.
"I'm sorry but we have to return to Atlas, the winds have become treacherous." The soldier explained, "it'll have to wait until the weather eases up."
Ruby frowned and returned to staring at her scroll. "They're alive," Ruby said looking up at everyone giving them the warmest smile she could manage, "and that means we can find them, and we will."
________________________________________________
CHANGING LOCATION
POV
Jaune listened as their call was flooded with static. He knelt in the snow and clutched the stitch in his side. After an hour long rest in the cave they'd managed to hike their way here where Penny claimed they'd be within range of the CCT tower.
He listened to Ruby's voice difficult as it was to understand through the call. He touched Penny's shoulder as she worked with her internal communication system to restore the call struggling with all kinds of interference. The hiss of static continued as she worked trying to find a clearer channel, her brow was furrowed and Jaune could tell that she was worried.
"Maybe we should move closer," he suggested giving her shoulder an assuring squeeze, "maybe we could get a stronger signal if we get a little closer, a few more kilometers shouldn't be too much trouble."
Penny shook her head, tossing her red hair side to side. "It's not that," she told him, "there's all kinds of interference blocking my transmissions," she explained to him, "I'm being jammed."
Jaune felt his stomach sink and he looked around the landscape trying futilely to spot anything. Giving their pursuer the ship hadn't kept them from looking over their shoulders almost every step of the way here.
"Wait… I'm getting a video call," Penny said, her eye projecting a screen.
The image of the sniper appeared, his face was still concealed by a white balaclava but his goggles hung down on his neck revealing a pair of icy blue eyes. He pulled off the mask revealing his face, his features were chiseled and a pencil mustache ornamented his face, he was well groomed his dark hair was stylishly cut, but the pointed dog ears atop his head grabbed Jaune's attention, he was a Faunus.
"My apologies Miss Polendina," the man said almost sincerely, "but I cannot let you call in any interruptions, the hunt is just getting interesting-."
"Interesting!?" Jaune interrupted with a growl.
The icy blue eyes flashed with annoyance as they looked to Jaune. "Mind your manners Mr Arch, I was addressing the…" he chuckled, "silly me I almost said lady, how should I refer to you Miss Polendina? Android? Synthetic? Automaton?"
Penny frowned at him, "I would very much like to be called a lady," she told him firmly.
The man chuckled again with amusement, "and I'm sure a housecat would very much like to be called a lion."
"Who are you!?" Jaune demanded feeling his anger flare, "why are you hunting us!?"
The sniper frowned, "my apologies I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Vasily Patterson and you have the honor of being my prey."
"Honor? We're supposed to be honored that you're trying to kill us?" Jaune gritted his teeth seething, "That's what this is all about?"
"Don't flatter yourself John," Vasily said cooly, "I am hunting the Android not you Mr Arch, frankly I'm a little surprised she's held onto you so long, you're clearly a liability slowing her down."
"Jaune asked you a question," Penny said. "Why are you after me? What have I done to you?"
Vasily looked back towards Penny giving another smile, "You've done nothing to me personally Miss Polendina, but my employer has deemed you a threat to their operation."
"You're an assassin!" Jaune spat.
Anger flashed briefly through Vasily's cold blue eyes but a sinister grin spread across his face showing pearly white teeth. "I am a hunter Mr Arch, and an esteemed one at that. Don't confuse me with a common killer, and please don't think of me as a greedy mercenary. Hunting you Miss Polendina is just as much about pleasure as it is business, you are unique and one of your swords will have a special place on my trophy wall."
Penny shuttered at that, "Why are you calling me?" She asked him seriously looking around at the horizon.
"It's rare that I have the opportunity to converse with my prey, especially one as unique as you," Vasily explained to her casually. "I do wonder just what is going on in that positronic brain of yours, I've hunted grimm and huntsmen but I have never hunted anything quite like you Miss Polendina."
"End the call Penny," Jaune told her making no effort to hide his disgust, "we're wasting our time talking to this scum."
Vasily only laughed, "I'll be seeing you soon Miss Polendina, I suggest you leave Mr Arch behind if you want any chance of escaping."
Penny ended the call silencing him. "We need to find someplace to hold out," she said, "the sun will be setting in just a couple hours."
Jaune nodded, "Alright, is there anywhere we can go?" He asked her feeling that anywhere wouldn't give them much refuge from Vasily .
Penny nodded, "I think I might know a place, but we'll have to hurry."
Jaune nodded, "then let's not waste anymore time."
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CHANGING LOCATION
POV
Vasily smirked at the call closed. This was where things could get interesting. He observed the weather data being forwarded to him, the sinking temperatures and the coming blizzard would make conditions treacherous in the coming night. White out conditions would prove a challenge to him, and the temperatures would be lethal for the simple human.
He suspected the android wouldn't abandon him, she had already shown herself to be limited by a very human-like sentimentality. He supposed her creator was at fault, designing a weapon to think was one thing, but to be burdened by feeling and emotion was another. He supposed her creator was at fault, designing a weapon to look and act like a young girl was as illogical as it was softhearted.
He shrugged to himself and pulled up the map on his scroll. That little phone call had done more than simply given him a chance to speak to his prey, it'd helped him narrow down her location by triangulating her signal. He looked at the immediate area, if she wished to protect the young huntsman they'd need to seek shelter and that left them with very few options. He spotted them on the map, an old mine, a research outpost, an abomination ghost town, their options were limited and he had only a handful of areas to search. "Let the hunt truly begin," he said to himself.
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CHANGING LOCATION
POV
Howling. It was all Jaune could hear as the freezing wind battered him, ice showered him clinging to his damp clothes and stinging his face. The cold flurry that surrounded him turned his world a cruel white as if the world itself had been destroyed leaving him alone. He forced himself to move, his fingers and toes were numb but his muscles burned as he forced himself to put one foot in front of the other. He fought the wind feeling it push him, keeping him back or threatening to push him down into the snow. He squinted his eyes and shielded them with his hand just to keep his eyes open and watch where he stepped. The dying light was slowly removing what little visibility he had left and the thought of being left in the pitch black surrounded by these stinging and howling winds as the dropping temperatures suffocated him until he didn't feel anything anymore.
"Jaune!" He heard feeling a grip on his hand pulling him up. He hadn't realized that he'd stopped kneeling in the snow. He looked up seeing Penny, even in the dim light of the setting sun she was a bright splash of color in this white void. Her copper red hair blew off to the side whipped about by the frigid gusts.
"Penny?" His weak voice didn't pierce the deafening roar of the wind, he felt like he was being swallowed by the storm and only Penny was keeping from being consumed.
"We're almost there!" Penny told him projecting her voice over the screaming gale, "hold on!"
He felt like he was floating, he couldn't even feel himself walking. He numbly trudged through the the deep snow wading through it, mindlessly focusing on moving forward and clutching Penny's hand.
He forced himself to look up seeing the silhouettes of buildings through the white haze. Refuge. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to move faster spurred on by the promise of shelter.
The sound of creaking boards and clattering shutters joined the symphony of the storm and together they approached the closest building. Jaune could see boarded up windows and an old door with peeled paint. Jaune could barely get a grip on the rusty doorknob, Penny managed to force the door open and pushed him inside.
The front room was dark and musty, it smelled like an old dusty attic. Penny forced the door closed behind him and locked it. Jaune scanned the dim room before it, it looked like it'd been a house at one point, long abandoned and left to decay. It was mostly empty save for a layer of dust and some cobwebs, an empty fireplace, some furniture was left here and there, an old moldy couch sat in one corner and an old table with chairs in another, a dirty rug lay decaying on the floor.
Jaune dropped to his knees and rubbed his hands shivering violently. Penny didn't waste time looking around the dilapidated building. She moved across the room to where the table was splintering it with a punch.
"Let's get a fire going?" Penny said shattering the wooden furniture with ease and moving to the fireplace. She shoved the scraps of wood into the fireplace forcing the flue open, a single blade from Floating Array deployed and morphed into its laser gun form shooting a single green beam of light at the collection of wood burning it. Penny added a few bits of trash letting scraps of old paper or cloth catch fire helping it catch to the table pieces.
A dim orange glow filled the dark room and Jaune held his hands out feeling the heat. He moaned at the heat feeling it wash over him. He sat there for a long moment and Penny moved about adding wood to the little pile they had.
"Uh… Jaune?" Penny asked.
"Yeah?" He asked, looking away from the fire.
"I do not mean to embarrass you," she began tentatively looking away as he caught her eyes reflecting the fire, "but you need to get out of those wet clothes."
Jaune frowned looking down, his shirt and pants and everything beneath was completely soaked. Frost and unmelted snow covered him and clung to his armor. "You're right," he sighed, moving to unbuckle the plates of armor stepping them along. Whatever thought or insecurities he might usually have about being nude in front of another girl felt very weak. He needed to keep warm and damp clothing wouldn't help him, and he'd need dry clothes for the trek tomorrow, right now it was that simple.
"I will try to see if I can find a blanket," Penny assured him, moving to leave, "be right back." Jaune nodded laying his armor down neatly next to Crocea Mors and the pistol he'd taken from the their driver. What had been his name?
He pulled his boots off and looked at the soaked socks, he left them by the fire to dry too wringing what little moisture he could from his socks before handing them like stockings. He took a long moment to hold his feet out to feel the flames, sensation was returning to his body and with every passing minute he wanted the damp clothes sticking to him gone. He stripped his shirt off and like his socks did what he could to squeeze out excess water before leaving it by the fire to dry followed by his jeans.
Jaune kept his boxers on in the hope that Penny would in fact find a blanket before he removed them and help him preserve what modesty he could in the situation. He sat on the dirty floor and basked in front of the fire feeling it's heat wash over him before standing to take a small look around the abandoned house for anything he could burn or use. He wasn't going to just bask in front of the warm fire while Penny did all the work, even if he was still cold.
He could hear the it groan against the wind and hear it whistling outside and through cracks in the walls, he looked into some of the smaller room returning to the fireplace to wrap a scrap of dirty cloth around one of the broken chair legs to make a little torch just so he could see in the dark rooms.
The signs of the former occupants where littered in the mostly empty room, a old spring mattress, a few moldy old books, a broken tobacco pipe, a stuffed teddy bear. He took whatever he could back to the fireplace, without any fuel for his torch he couldn't keep it lit for very long so he'd relight it every trip.
He stepped up the stairs careful on the rickety steps before spotting a closed door at the end of the hall. He forced the door open cracking the rotting frame and stepping in with his torch. It looked like the master bedroom with a broken bed frame with another moldy mattress. A few crooked paintings hung from the wall, whatever had once been upon them couldn't be determined anymore.
"Jaune?" He heard Penny cry out for him from the living room having returned from checking the other buildings.
"I'm up here." He called looking in the corner. He could hear her every footstep from down stairs as she moved to join him. "Woah," he said stepping close, an old double barrel shotgun was leaning against the wall. The blue steel was spotted with rust but he picked it up all the same.
"What are you doing up here?" Penny asked, stepping inside her eyes glowing a soft green.
"Helping you look for anything of use," he explained feeling a little silly standing here in his underwear, "look what I found."
"Any shells?" Penny asked him.
"I'm still looking," he explained handing her the dying torch he made before glancing on the floor for anything, "what is this place?"
Penny moved around the room breaking some scraps of wood from the broken bed frame making a small pile to carry downstairs, they'd definitely have enough to keep the fire lit for the rest of the night. "It used to be an old Schnee Dust Company mining town," she explained to him, "I think this used to be the head prospectors home."
"So why's it a ghost town now?" He asked her, moving to one of the nightstands and pulling the drawer out.
"The grimm attacks were too frequent," Penny explained simply. "And the dust deposits were too small to keep the mine operational, eventually the SDC declared the mine and the town to be failed investments, they evacuated the area and left it abandoned. Occasionally people come out here, huntsman and huntresses mostly looking for a place to escape the elements during a job. I found some gear that'd been left behind."
Jaune reached into the drawer and pulled out an old cardboard box, "I found some shells," he said looking at the plastic cartridges.
"Do you really plan on trying to use that gun?" Penny asked standing up and gathering her stack of wood in her arms.
"Maybe," Jaune said following her back downstairs, "we need to make use of whatever we can, that assassin and those drones are still out there, we should probably try to hold out here, out there we're exposed. Plus this place is a landmark that should be easy for our friends to find, we might even be able to signal them somehow, though we'd risk exposing our location to that assassin."
"You are probably right," Penny admitted.
"Plus if worse comes to worse I can try holding out while you try getting back to Mantle yourself," he explained stepping into the living room.
"I am not going to leave you Jaune," she said. "Just hear me out. That Vasily guy was right, I'm a liability to you and I'm slowing you down, at best you're left wasting power carrying me you'd be faster without me and I'm getting weaker, I'm no help to you in a fight," he explained kneeling down in front of the fireplace inspecting the old hunting shotgun under the light of the fire. He broke the action of the gun open and held it up peering down the double barrels seeing to obstructions.
"I am not leaving you to die," Penny said with a frown, "I do not care what that criminal said!"
"I'm not asking to be left to die," Jaune assured her setting the weapon down, "I'm saying that if push comes to shove you should take the chance to go ahead and find help, that guy doesn't care about me, you're the one he's hunting and I'm just making things easier on him."
Penny still frowned, "I see your logic," she admitted, "but I don't like it, it still means leaving you alone to deal with grimm, Vasily or who knows what else."
Jaune shrugged, "it's a risk we might have to take."
Penny reached down grabbing an old dirty blanket she'd apparently found and handed it to him. "It sounds like a gamble to me."
Jaune smirked pulling the blanket around his shoulders, "I'd be betting on you," he said flashing her a cocky grin, "that doesn't sound so dumb to me."
Penny looked away awkwardly but with a little smile on her lips. "You would be putting your life in my hands."
Jaune sat back down in front of the fire finally stripping away his wet boxers to dry with the rest of his clothes. "I'm used to relying on my friends," he said staring into the flames.
Penny looked at him sitting on the floor next to him. "I am your friend?" She asked him curiously.
"Yeah," Jaune said offering her a warm smile, "at least after this I think so," he explained to her with a chuckle, "I'm sitting here naked and I just spent a long day with you fighting grimm and robots, you literally carried me through the day, I've made friends from a lot less."
Penny smiled at that and two of them fell into a comfortable silence together watching the fire burn together and listening to it crackle and spark, they occasionally put on a new scrap of wood to burn and Jaune would watch the flames consume it.
"Do you enjoy staring into the fire?" She asked him.
Jaune nodded taking his eyes off the flickering flames to look at her, "Yeah, I don't know why really but it's always been fascinating to look at, my family and I would spend hours around the campfire."
"You'd spend hours together looking at the fire?"
"Not just looking at it," he explained, "we'd do all kinds of things, we'd talk, we'd roast marshmallows, my mom would tell the scariest ghost stories."
"Ghost stories?"
"Yeah, my younger sisters would get so scared they'd ask to stay with me in my tent, I'd stay up late with them making shadow puppets with my flashlight or maybe read them a story that wasn't scary so they'd fall asleep," he smiled fondly recalling the memories, he stretched his hands out and shifted it so the shadow cast by the fire resembled a long eared rabbit.
Penny giggled watching the shadowy bunny hop across the wall. "Why would your mother tell stories to scare your little sisters?"
"Well… Uh, sometimes it's kind of fun to get scared," he explained to her.
"How?"
"Well uh… you get excited and feel a rush," he explained, "like have you ever felt jittery after watching a horror movie?"
"No," Penny answered with a shake of her head.
Jaune chuckled, "I suppose I should have figured, it's hard to explain but when my mom would tell us stories about ghosts and monsters things just got intense, we felt like things were watching us from every dark corner, every rustle of leaves was something sneaking around, we'd jump at our own shadows, but we'd always laugh at ourselves afterward for being silly."
Penny nodded, "I think I understand," she explained, "when you are scared you are excited."
Jaune nodded, "yeah pretty much."
They turned back to the fire listening to it crackle as they blizzard raged outside happy to just sit next to one another. Jaune felt his shoulder touching hers and he felt like they were back in the truck again talking comfortably together, before that hired assassin had forced them to flee across the tundra and fight for their lives.
"Are you scared Jaune?" She asked him softly breaking the short stint of silence.
"Not in the fun way," he said honestly but with a nervous laugh. "I keep feeling like every sound I hear outside might be that gunman or his drones, and I wonder if I'll be able to get my drying clothes back on before I have to fight."
Penny giggled at that. "You should try to sleep," she told him seriously, "rest will help replenish your aura and you will need all the energy you can."
"I don't know if I can sleep," he answered her somewhat honestly, "I barely slept against that cave wall, though this dirty floor is definitely an upgrade."
"You could use my lap as a pillow," she offered.
"Thank you," Jaune said appreciative of the offer, "but what about you?"
"I told you Jaune, I do not sleep like you." "But you do sleep, right?" He asked her looking into her green mechanical eyes.
"In a way," she explained, "I… go into a standby, or sleep mode if you prefer."
Jaune's brow furrowed, "you turn off?"
"No," she said shaking her head, "I am still operating but most of my systems shut down to consume less power, I can use it in emergencies or if I am too low on power I will automatically enter this state so I might be recovered."
Jaune nodded, "I think this counts as an emergency," he said, "you can go into sleep mode and conserve your power, I'll keep watch."
"Are you sure?" She asked him.
"It's only fair, you took watch last time, and you preserving power for a couple of hours is just as important as me getting sleep. It's probably more important honestly, I'll sleep after you." Penny held his gaze for a moment, she looked like she wanted to protest his idea and insist that he sleep but she voiced no argument to him.
"Alright," she relented, "I'll sleep for three hours, then it's your turn."
Jaune nodded, "agreed."
Penny moved away and laid down on the floor flat on her back folding her hands on her belly looking up at the ceiling.
"Will I be able to wake you up?" He asked.
"You can," Penny explained, "anything that is too loud or tries to move me will power up my other systems, I could also have a set word or phrase that'll make me."
Jaune nodded, "how about if I just say your name, will that work?"
"Yes," Penny answered, "that will work."
Jaune nodded in understanding, "alright then, sweet dreams Penny, uh… do you dream?"
Penny shook her head, "no, part of my mind is still active running my systems at a minimal power consumption but no I do not dream."
Jaune nodded, "I see."
"Can you tell me what it is like?" She asked, "to dream?"
"Dreams are… weird," he explained to her, "most of the time they don't make any sense and I can barely remember them at all,"
"How do they not make sense?" She asked.
"They uh… like one time I had a dream back in Beacon where I was running away from Yang because somehow I stole her hair," he explained, "I actually had her long hair for some reason and she wanted to take it back and I had to like do team RWBYs homework or something, there's a hundred other weird details I couldn't remember but during the dream it all seemed to make perfect sense."
"That is not how hair works," Penny said giggling, "you could not just take it and attach it or reattach it."
"Exactly," Jaune said, "it was complete nonsense, and that's how dreams usually are for me, nonsense that's only coherent in the dream, sometimes I would be naked in class or running from something weird or silly. But I'd wake up and I could hardly remember any of it, I just knew I dreamed and there was no logic in what I dreamt."
Penny nodded to him, "it sounds… fascinating, but some of these dreams sound more like nightmares."
Jaune frowned, "nightmares are… worse, much worse, I remember them a lot easier, they're clearer, more vivid."
Penny looked at him worriedly and sat up from the floor, "so you have nightmares?" She asked him tentatively.
"All the time," Jaune admitted to her.
"I am sorry."
Jaune gave her a little smile, "it's not your fault," he said, "I'd be worried if I didn't have nightmares after everything."
They again fell into a short stint of silence, she wanted to ask him about his nightmares, to know about what haunted him. But she didn't know how to ask, or if she should ask. Jaune was her friend, he'd called them as such but she didn't know if she was enough of a friend to ask him about his nightmares.
"You should be getting to sleep now," Jaune said.
Penny nodded, "alright."
"Goodnight Penny," he said watching as her eyes closed.
"Goodnight Jaune."
CHANGING LOCATION
POV
Vasily smiled watching the screen, the faint red glow of heat penetrated the grey backdrop. His drone circled the old ghost town scouting it with it's thermal lenses.
As predicted the android had sought shelter for the boy endeavoring to keep him alive through the storm. It would have been wiser to try to keep moving through the harsh weather on her own. His eyes flickered through the various screens observing the digital map. His vehicle's connection to the CCT was spotty from the weather but it didn't seem that this storm would be letting up for another several hours, it would likely break after dawn but that gave him time.
Time to prepare his battlefield and ensure his victory, with his target trapped by the weather they had no options for escape. As long as the android protected that boy she'd be hindered.
He could lay his own traps, keep the little android on her toes. Prey such as her needed a special touch to bring down. A knife wouldn't do much against a Goliath after all and he'd prepared for the occasion.
He typed in a command to his drones ordering them to monitor the abandoned town and begin deploying the traps. Unless the android herself was watching the perimeter he was sure he'd remain unnoticed, the storm would mask the noise of his drones and spotting them through the haze of the storm and dark of night.
Yes. Things would get quite interesting. The android's compassion for her frail human companion had already doomed her, she let her concern for him lead her into a perfect position to hide. Like cornering an ursai in its own lair, he could dispose of the beast whilst its back was to the wall or it could charge blindly into his trap.
The android had let him control the situation and it was a mistake she wouldn't live to regret.
He put his snow truck into gear, sending it forward on the treads towards the ghost town. He'd launch his attack before dawn, in the darkest hours before the sun rose above the horizon.
He smirked looking over to his favorite express rifle on the rack. He could hardly contain his grin, he'd claim another prized trophy with the weapon. His first android. He pushed down on the gas driving through the blizzard, he could practically taste the kill.
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TO BE CONTINUED