49

If anyone was wondering how long it'd take til I got to the NND fluff? Yeah, it starts now and boy am I trying to make up for lost time with it.

Chapter Text

"Soooooo… I know we were pretty much hanging out all day but I kinda just talked your ear off about my sisters and Team and also our weapons and what I was planning on doing with Myrtenaster when I have some free time," Ruby started, idly mixing up a batch of chocolate icing and eyeing her cake as she made sure it was absolutely perfect in every way- ready to be presented to Cinder in the morning with no delay. Thank goodness for the fact that she didn't really need to sleep anymore, otherwise she wouldn't have had any time to make the cake after the day they'd all had. And thank goodness for the fact that Professor Goodwitch had only given her a detention for being out after curfew because the shenaniganry Team RWBY had gotten into this time had actually resulted in the capture of a notorious criminal and a bunch of White Fang members… and that when Penny had stated that level nine alert, she'd been using her close range sensors instead of reading what the actual city sensors had said, otherwise they'd have been in a lot more trouble.

And also good thing she'd gotten most of the cake done before they all did the whole White Fang thing because that was messy . 

"Anyway um… so… what's up with you?" Ruby continued rather lamely, stirring the icing in the bowl as she looked over at Penny, splitting her attention with some Rosebuds so she could get an early set of breakfast burritos done before morning happened- extra spicy tuna for Blake, traditional with extra avocado for Yang, and medium spicy chicken for Weiss. Also, a bunch of raw ground meat in a tortilla for her, because grimm instincts were dumb and she craved raw meat at weird times. "Like… I mean, I guess I got your name and I know that you're a robot and stuff and I kinda got that you're from Atlas but like… what do you like to do for fun, Penny?"

"Oh, I am not sure, Friend Ruby- while I was in Atlas, the vast majority of my time was taken up with testing, physical upgrades, programming upgrades, and lots and lots of training. I suppose I have been enjoying the activity of shopping, and I did download many terabytes of entertainment media in order to try and simulate the social experience, but I fear that I may not have done as good of a job as I had previously thought," Penny stated evenly- her voice continuously positive even as she said something that was honestly rather heartbreaking. "But now that I have largely slipped free of the majority of my supervision here at Beacon, I think I quite enjoy… 'hanging out' with you."

"O-oh… well. Thanks. Sorry we got off on the wrong foot earlier then," Ruby chuckled, setting down her bowl and letting another Rosebud handle the decoration of the cake as she led Penny out of the Team RWBY kitchenette and over to the common room between their dorm and JNPR's, ignoring the delicious smells wafting through the air as she headed to the couch. "You're… honestly really cool, Penny. I didn't get to see a lot of how you fought, but your weapons are amazing and the fact that you can control them so precisely with such thin cables is just… so cool . I'm still not letting you drag me to Atlas though."

"That is fair, Friend Ruby," Penny chuckled, sitting down with Ruby and bumping her shoulder gently against Ruby's- taking care to avoid damaging her temporary dress against the ever present shoulder spike on her new friend's shoulder. "I was not, perhaps, very good at convincing you to follow me in the first place. I do not blame you, though I do think that your nature as a half grimm, half human deserves some kind of study- if only because it is heretofore entirely unseen for someone with your circumstances to exist. That said, I will not bring it up again if you do not want me to."

"It's fine, really. Honestly, I just don't wanna leave my team and family behind," Ruby shrugged, bumping her shoulder against Penny's in return, the two of them staring at the turned off TV for a moment before Ruby just shrugged and flicked it on with a pass of her scroll, not really paying much attention to the mindless late night TV playing on the screen. "But yeah, enough about me. I wanna hear more about you. I know you didn't get to do a lot in Atlas… which really sucks by the way… but… tell me about yourself anyway?"

"Of course! I was created as the primary product of the P.E.N.N.Y. Project, which my father has told me was only named as such because he came up with a convincing backronym to justify naming me Penny instead of something much more formal- my official designation in the Atlesian Military is Special Forces Unit M374 Prototype , but please do not call me that. Even General Ironwood calls me Penny," the chipper gynoid started, tapping her chin with her finger as she looked upwards in thought, tilting her head in an utterly adorable manner as she thought about everything about herself. "My body's superstructure and chassis are largely made of a wide variety of assorted Dust infused titanium alloys with steel reinforcements. Instead of being primarily driven by individual servos at key joints, my muscles are instead synthetic fibers that contract and move beneath my artificial skin in order to provide a realistic example of human musculature- though, I am capable of detaching said muscles partially in order to use my limb servos for a wider range of movement than a human body is capable of. In addition, my artificial skin is made of a proprietary, metallic infusion, Dust treated silicone mix that confers extra durability, greater Aura conductivity, and the ability to self heal if given enough time- for example, the cuts and scratches I gained from you dragging Yang and I around whilst berserk have already fixed themselves, though my dress is still ruined."

"Haha… yeah sorry about that," Ruby murmured, clearing her throat awkwardly while Penny motioned to her blemish-free skin that was so smooth and flawless that it'd probably make Weiss jealous. It didn't make Ruby jealous, since… well. She was a shapeshifter, sorta. She could just change what she looked like if she wanted to.

"It is quite alright! It is… It's! It's quite alright," Penny nodded, repeating her words for a moment before smiling and seeming as though she had come to a conclusion. "Also, I think that I'm going to use contractions from now on. Atlas was very stuffy about using proper language without too many contractions and colloquialisms, so I think I'll enjoy getting to 'cut loose' as it were."

"Heh, yeah… that does sound like it'd be fun if you'd been forced to only use proper language your whole life so far…" Ruby nodded, then pursed her lips as she turned to face Penny with a slightly curious expression. "Actually, how old are you anyway? I know you look about Beacon aged… or slightly younger, now that I think about it… you look my age… but um… how old are you really?"

"From first prototypes to now, technically I'm fourteen years old, Friend Ruby!" Penny answered easily, nodding to herself as she checked her own databases before turning back to the grimm girl she'd defended- it was odd, but… being with someone so equally divorced from normal definitions of humanity was… nice. She felt like Ruby could understand her better than anyone else. "My father first started trying to build a truly living artificial intelligence fourteen years ago, and made many prototypes both for the military, and for what would eventually become me! Though, in terms of my current consciousness, I suppose my neural net is… about five years old now, though in all other ways except for social awareness, I am combat ready and approximately of Academy age in terms of mental maturity and cognitive function."

"Huh. I guess that means you're… well. Honestly, I'm technically only eleven," Ruby sighed, idly rubbing at her cheek and looking down at her hands. "I've checked. There's nothing left of my human body in here, so whatever messed up thing happened to me when I was four made me as I am now, and the human part of me is just gone. So. Even if I still have four year old me's memories, I'm technically only, y'know. A little over a decade old."

Ruby shrugged, then bumped her shoulder against Penny's with a dry chuckle. "Hey, that technically makes you older than me!"

Penny brightened, looking at Ruby with a light giggle. "I suppose it does! If my first prototypes before I was sentient started fourteen years ago, then that makes me three years older than you! Though, I am, technically, a year younger than you as well… or twelve years younger, depending on how you measure these things, but legally speaking, I am certain that my official birth certificate marks me as being just under sixteen, so I am also a bit less than a year older than you."

Ruby snorted, shaking her head and smiling as she decided to lean against Penny, wanting to feel a sense of closeness to someone else now that the rest of her team was in bed. "Age is weird. Honestly, with how far off we are from the norm, we might as well just say that we're whatever age works best for our maturity levels, right?"

"Mhmm! I think I'd like to be sixteen, then. It's a nice number, though if I receive further upgrades and become taller then I may choose to be older," Penny hummed, tapping her chin again as she thought. "I think I would like to try long hair one day. Maybe in a new color too! And a bold new style! I think my father called this… teenage rebellion?"

"I think it's just called expressing yourself," Ruby answered, bopping her head against Penny's (while taking sure not to accidentally bump her with the sharp edges of her ever-present mask) before shaking her head ever so slightly. "I could help you figure out what it'd look like, sorta. I can't… really do a whole lot of colors though. Red, white, black… I can occasionally do yellow or green or orange, but those are iffy… and orange is redundant on you. Gonna need to cover you in grimm stuff though cuz I don't really… have makeup. Or a lot of clothes."

"Indeed," Penny agreed, then paused and idly ran a finger through her hair. "Could you… give me longer hair, then? I think I would like to call what Mistral calls the… hime cut? And I would like to see what straight hair is like. Oh! And gothic attire as well! I find it fascinating how different it is from my own sense of aesthetics."

"Heh, you came to the right girl then- no one in the school is better than I am with goth stuff. Y'know. Cuz I'm half grimm," Ruby grinned, already working her hand into Penny's hair as she spoke- gently scritching at Penny's scalp while releasing threads of grimm stuff to anchor to the gynoid's skull and hide the orange locks. "We'll get you in all black and heavy makeup in a jiffy!"

She paused, then cleared her throat. "Once I… remember… how to actually use makeup… and steal some from Yang… cuz I usually just shapeshift on my tattoos and stuff."

"There's no rush, I'm sure the result will be very pretty no matter what!"

"Yeah… I hope so."