Chapter Text
Most people could not be productive for eighteen hours straight. The mind wandered. It demanded distractions. It began to slow, then plod. Willpower was a renewable but finite resource, and you couldn’t just keep going simply because what you were doing was important. No matter how willing the spirit, the flesh was weak.
Most people were not James Ironwood. The flesh may be weak, but Mettle was stronger.
His semblance was the only reason he could hold two seats on the council, maintain the duties of both, while simultaneously protecting Remnant from threats most never knew of. In the depths of Mettle, he might need sleep, but never rest. His only limitations were physical.
Those limitations were choosing this moment to rear their heads. Surprisingly not hunger or tiredness this time. His right hand was twitching oddly.
He frowned. That arm was good work. There wasn’t anything debilitating about the twitching. It was an infrequent, small movement. He could write and he could fight, if he had to.
Ironwood got up anyway. He could fit a trip to the workshop in between an informal status update.
His boots clomped on the polished white floors. Moonlight pooled in through the hallways' tall windows, and was almost banished by the automatic lights reacting to his presence. How many days had he been inside, to not notice how bright the nights were getting?
Moonlight returned behind him as the lights turned off, and he grew worried. There were only a few people on the graveyard shift, and it was possible none of them were actually in the main lab at the moment. He didn’t actually know what they were doing today. He might be wasting his time. These sorts of mistakes always kept cropping up whenever he stopped paying attention.
The doors slid open, revealing the lab. A central cluster of computers, surrounded by hologram whiteboards, plus a handful of physical ones because Pietro had insisted. Further out, machinery and benches, with a handful of scattered computers.
There were a few scientists and engineers. Most of them were in what Ironwood thought of as the “nod and then verify” section of the lab. Portals to other worlds would be strategically unmatched, with options he couldn’t have dreamt of before suddenly available. But the actual details of it were so far beyond him, he could only nod when given an update or asked for more resources, then desperately try to verify if he was being hoodwinked later.
The secrecy of the project made it exceedingly difficult, and the ‘travelers’ recalcitrance had not aided matters. Ironwood breathed out. He shouldn’t blame them. He wouldn’t want to live in a laboratory either, especially one controlled by forces he couldn’t know or trust. Much freer, to be a student.
The scientists were making the sort of angry math and theory noises that were generally associated with progress. Ironwood decided to leave them be. Though Dr. Tenebre was known to throw whiteboards when she was riled, so he didn’t tune them out completely.
The basics of maintenance were straightforward enough. All the tools he needed were here, and of high quality. Critically, all the steps could be done with his left hand. He sat down on an out of the way bench next to a hulking mass of machinery.
“Salutations!” said a bright and chipper voice, totally at odds with the lateness of the hour.
Ironwood was startled, but tried his best to restore his composure. “...Miss Polendina,” he said.
Penny Polendina was… Well, the P.E.N.N.Y. project had been Dr. Polendina’s magnum opus, but Penny had become Pietro’s daughter. Her situation was… odd. Both metaphysically, and currently, physically. A mass of wires and machines surrounded her, until only her head was visible.
The P.E.N.N.Y project was a machine that could generate Aura. Penny was that, and also a girl.
“Grandfather Ironwood!” Penny said.
Ironwood dropped his screwdriver. “What?”
“Well, my father is Pietro, and he says he works for you...”
“That's… not the sort of relation we have.”
“Uncle Ironwood?” Penny tried.
“Still not it.”
Penny frowned.
“What should I call you?” she said, stressing the word ‘should’.
“Call me James.”
“Oh! Father told me about this, it is a symmetrical protocol! You may call me Penny.”
James tried to smile genuinely. It was a little wooden after a long stint inside Mettle, but Pietro was saying that Penny needed as much social practice as she could get.
“Well then, Penny, I’m sorry for waking you up. Do you mind if I use this bench for a while?”
“Not at all, James!”
The robot—the girl he corrected mentally—hummed as he collected what he needed. The screwdriver from off the ground. A decent oscilloscope. A computer that could accept the serial port readings, in case there were any error codes.
The scientists on the other side of the lab still hadn’t noticed him. The volume was growing a little unprofessional, but you didn’t end up on the night shift for a top secret project by having thin skin or by being a people pleaser.
Ironwood sat down, and peeled off his glove.
Penny gasped when she saw his arm. Her speakers digitally and perfectly recreated the sound of a shocked intake of air.
“James,” Penny said, “are you—”
“I’m not synthetic,” James said flatly, and immediately.
Some people said that General Ironwood was heartless. His job would be less complicated if that were true. Letting a girl believe the impossible while he searched for a gentle way to let her down might have been easy, but it would have been cruel.
“Oh.” Penny said.
Penny was quiet, and the silence stretched for a bit. Ironwood hated solutions that looked exactly like the problem.
“I’m sorry,” Ironwood said.
“‘You never need to be sorry for what you’re made of’,” Penny said, in a slightly deeper voice. “If nothing is wrong with being organic, and nothing is wrong with being synthetic, it must be fine to be a bit of both! It would be illogical for the result of a linear combination of vectors with strictly positive components and scalars to have any negative components. No one ever suggested that morality uses modular arithmetic.”
Ironwood smiled. He wasn’t quite sure what all of that had meant, but Penny had snapped out of her momentary gloom.
“I suppose it is a part of me,” Ironwood said. “Part of my history. I’ve had this right arm longer than I had the old one. It’s part of how I interact with the world, part of how the world interacts with me.”
Ironwood plugged in the leads for the oscilloscope while he talked. These signals almost never had problems, but he was in no rush. He had the time to do the maintenance methodically.
“If that is true, then why do you only cover up your right hand with a glove?”
Ironwood blinked. “I… you know, would you believe it’s actually the other way around?”
Penny tilted her head as best she could within the confines of her charging station. “I guess I would believe it if that were true? But why would I see a glove on your right hand if it's actually on your left? Wait… are you a magician?!”
“No, I mean that when I get ready in the morning, I put both gloves on,“ Ironwood said. ”But my hands sweat if I’m indoors, or down south. When I feel that happen, I usually get irritated and take the glove off. But that only ever happens with my left hand.”
“So you are asking if I would believe that it is not that you are only wearing one glove. It is that you are only not wearing one glove.” Penny said.
He hadn’t meant for a basic rhetorical device to be interpreted as a philosophical question, but he was willing to see where this went. Pietro also said that philosophy would be good for her.
The distraction giving him some quiet while she thought was a related benefit.
There was a series of minute clicks and whirs, as Penny’s optics shifted and her pupils dilated. She focused with laser intensity on both of his hands.
“It is no use.” she said. “Wearing one glove and not wearing one glove sound like opposites, but they look exactly the same! How am I supposed to know?”
“Sometimes you can’t know what the right decision is,” Ironwood said. ”You just have to learn what you can, decide, and then do your best.”
Penny kept quiet for a while after that, and Ironwood had some time to focus on measuring the signals in his arm. Lights flashed in her eyes as she wirelessly trawled through databases and archives. She would occasionally ask questions, but they were simple ones. Honestly, the scientists were the bigger distraction.
“I am trying to learn what I can,” Penny said. “I think to make the right decision, I need to know about your right arm, but I can’t find any details. I also can’t find any evidence of you being put on leave to upgrade it, even though your medical leaves are a matter of public concern by Atlas law.”
“A friend made it for me,” Ironwood said. “The blueprints were never released to the public.”
“Oh, is that why you have been waiting to upgrade it?” Penny said. “You’ve been waiting for your friend, because no one else would do it right?”
James laughed.
“What? Did I get it so wrong it was humorous? You have to tell me if that happened! Father said it was sometimes okay to laugh about others’ mistakes, but you had to tell the person what was right, and you couldn’t be mean about it!”
“No,” Ironwood said. “I’m laughing because you got it exactly right. That’s almost word for word what he said.”
Penny smiled. “Maybe you could call him? I bet your friend would know how to fix the jitter!”
“I can’t.” Ironwood said. “He passed away.”
“Oh.” Penny said.
Again, she was quiet.
“I have decided,” Penny said after a while. “You don’t have only one glove on. You have only one glove off. Friends are too important to cover up with a glove.”
Ironwood nodded.
Eventually, he was able to diagnose the issue. He had needed Penny’s help, as her eyes were able to notice fine details that he couldn’t. It seems the maintenance flap hadn’t been properly sealed the last time he had done this on his own, and some ink had fallen through the gaps.
He was in the process of putting tools back where they came from when the noise on the other side of the lab changed tone. They had progressed from raised voices to harsh language, and Ironwood was wondering if this argument was about to become his problem. All he could gather was that some of his people had spirited opinions over what did and didn’t count as valid data for the portals. And equally spirited opinions on anyone who held different opinions.
“Do they… do this often?” Ironwood asked.
“Oh, frequently!” Penny said, cheerfully. “I usually sleep through it, but I go through the audio logs once I wake up. Science is loud. And interesting!”
“Did you know,” Penny said, “That there are four girls from other worlds in Vale?”
“Yes,” Ironwood said.
“Do you think I could meet them, some day?”
Gears shifted, scraped, and crunched inside Ironwood’s brain. Ten seconds ago this conversation had been fairly calming, and about safe topics, like what rain felt like, or what his favorite type of math was. Now one of the most complicated, high value situations he knew of was asking to be put into direct contact with the one of the other most complicated, high value situations he knew of.
Penny was undoubtedly a person, but she was not just a person. She could, potentially, be the key to victory in the war. The war. The one against the Grimm. Against Salem. Penny didn’t even have to fight herself, it would be enough if some of her later siblings joined the fight, if there ever were any.
Similarly, the travelers were people, but they weren’t just people. They were possibly the only link to other worlds. Worlds with weapons and powers unavailable here. With healing beyond the wildest dreams of medicine. Even if all they could do was trade for grain, farms that didn’t need protection from the Grimm would be a brother’s sent miracle.
But Penny and the travelers were complicated and volatile. Penny had her difficulties, secrets the world had to be prepared to accept. The travelers were powerful, and clearly had their own loyalties and agendas.
You didn’t let complexities multiply. What if one of the travelers decided that Penny was an abomination, and refused to cooperate with anyone from Remnant ever again? Ironwood didn’t even trust his own citizens to not think that, not without guidance. What if Penny got told she was an abomination, and entered a spiral she never recovered from? Or if the travelers weren’t hostile themselves, what if they led Penny into a hostile situation by accident?
No, complex and volatile situations were kept separate. Multiplying complexities led to mistakes, and Ironwood could not afford to make mistakes. General Ironwood’s mistakes got people killed.
Perfect solutions were a fairy tale. You learned what you could, decided, and then did your best. But you damn well didn’t invite failure inside.
“We need to respect their privacy, at least what remains of it. They don’t want to be approached by strangers,” Ironwood said.
“We could exchange information.” Penny said. “Then we wouldn’t be strangers, and we could meet.”
“Ozpin would be upset with me if I handed out their private information, as would the travelers themselves.”
Penny furrowed her brow, thinking. “But the fact that they are in Vale isn’t private information. So if I cross their path during the Vytal Festival, we can meet then.”
“There will be thousands of people at the Festival,” Ironwood said, growing weary at the size of the headache that was being created in front of his eyes.
“And if I meet all of them, the only task left will be finding out which four are the travelers!”
This needed to be cut off at the root. “Penny, you can’t meet every person in Vale.”
“Why not? I’m going there to introduce myself to the whole world! I’ll just do it one at a time for a few.”
“Why do you even want to meet the travelers so badly?!”
“I… hoped they might understand.”
“Understand what?” Ironwood said.
“Those scientists over there?” Penny gestured with her head as best she could with constraints of her massive charging station.
“They keep saying, ‘They’re unique! The travelers are unique! There isn’t anyone else like them, not in all the world! That makes guessing what happened so hard!’” Penny said.
“So I guess, I am hoping, since they’re older than I am, they might understand how to be unique. Because I don’t,” Penny said.
A dozen objections sprung to mind. The travelers were only unique here, not where they came from. And even if that weren’t the case, they were teenagers, and probably didn’t understand their role in life any better than Penny did.
Penny was just latching onto a word.
Because she was desperate for any connection.
Because she had been in a lab for most of her short life.
Because there wasn’t anyone else like her, in all the world.
Some people said Ironwood was heartless. His job would be less complicated if that were true.
“I will talk to Ozpin,” he said.
Penny’s gratitude was interrupted by the engineering dispute hitting a boiling point. Dr. Tenebre began to hoist one of the physical whiteboards above her head, and it officially became Ironwood’s problem.
He had the length of one dressing down about workplace professionalism to think about how he was going to get Penny her meeting.
He’d made his decision. Now he just had to follow through.
–
Tonight’s moon probably had an official name, but Emerald had always just thought of it as one of the unlucky ones. It was too bright, too easy to get caught. Bad things happened on nights like these. People got hurt.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Cinder was too busy pacing to look at it. Her heels clicked against the cement of the rooftop. The Emerald of a year ago would have guessed she was deep in thought. But by now, she could notice all the little details. Her jaw was slightly clenched. Her right hand kept twitching. It looked like she was brushing away nonexistent wrinkles in her dress.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
Emerald wasn’t worried. Cinder would turn this around. Cinder had never failed Emerald, and would certainly never fail herself. Cinder was the type to never rest until she won.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
“And this on top of the mission changing at the last minute,” Cinder said.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
“Did Watts say anything else?” Cinder asked. Emerald could hear the smile in her voice, but it was a smile that had teeth.
“No. He just said that I should tell him everything you say. That you might… that he might take control soon.”
Clack.
Cinder turned around. “Did he say that exactly?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Emerald,” Cinder said, “Did he use the word ‘take’, or not?”
Emerald shook her head. “He just implied that you might not have it for much longer if—if things like Sheffield kept happening.”
“You can’t say things like that!” Emerald said. “Cinder is the boss.”
“Is she?” he asked. “Figured everything out on your own?”
Emerald hesitated.
“This is her project, I’ll grant you,” he said. “She is in control, and I am here to humbly assist. But you’ll note, everything I’m assisting with keeps working, and everything she plans keeps failing. Your education has been, well, different from mine, but I expect it was superior in teaching that failure is rarely tolerated for long.”
Emerald rolled her eyes. “It also taught me that pulling a knife is a good way to end up with one in your back.”
“Of course, of course. That is why you count the knives first.”
“Sheffield does not even qualify as a setback,” Cinder said. “We are already halfway done with one of our original goals.”
Cinder called forth a tongue of flame, just to emphasize the point.
“And for these new objectives, we’ve seen them fight. We learned that their leader’s range is longer than we assumed. They can only guess at what happened, or why,” Cinder said.
They had too much warning. Cinder had been able to gather that from just a few moments examining the tracks at the battlefield. The Grimm had been given orders to subdue instead of kill (Emerald shuddered at the idea of Grimm being given orders), but the monsters never even got close enough for that to be a possibility.
“And if he isn’t willing to take what he wants, then all he is doing is posturing,” Cinder said. “And he knows what is waiting for him if he ever tries to do more.”
Cinder looked into the distance. She wasn’t looking at the moon. She was looking… West? North-West? Emerald couldn’t hear the confident smirk in her voice anymore.
“You're unconvinced,” Cinder said. She didn’t even need to turn around.
“You told me not to worry about him succeeding, so I’m not,” Emerald said. “But if Watts tried to recruit me, he might try to get Merc as well.”
That was hard for her to say. Surprisingly hard to say. Cinder had seen her worth, had raised her up from nothing. All Mercury had done was fight beside her a few times, and snark. Lots of snark.
“Well. If the poor boy needs a victory to remind him who is really powerful… I’ve heard of just the opportunity.”
The smile was back in her voice, with more teeth than ever.
“And it just so happens that our greatest step forward yet will have no role for either one of them to play.”