*SCREEEEEEEEEECH* a truck's wheels desperately try to swerve out of the way but it was too late.

*CRASH*

Ruby's eyes widen as instead of getting run over and feeling a damp pain from her aura shattering, she instead hears what sounds like two cars crashing into each other all while the road seems to crumble all around her. She looks up and sees Penny casually stop a Dust transport vehicle, even denting the car in the process. While a normal huntsman or huntress can do so with just any car, Dust transporters are built with keeping semblance-users in mind so for her to accomplish a feat like this, she'd have to have been made of an even harder material, or have enough aura or a strong enough semblance to be able to tank something like this.

Confused, Ruby softly calls out to Penny who looks back at her in horrific realization before running off.

"Wait! Penny! Come back!" Ruby shouts as she runs off to catch back up with Penny.

Luckily for Ruby, Penny manages to run herself into a corner while trying to find an escape. With that chance, she pleads out, "What is going on?! Why are you running? How did you do that?!"

Penny hides her hands below her armpits as she desperately tries to talk her way out. "I-I can't! Everything's fine! I-I don't want to talk about it!" As she says this, each time she either lied or went into denial, she would hiccup.

She couldn't even look Ruby in the eyes anymore from how scared she was of what Ruby might think of her if she revealed the truth. Yet every person has a breaking point, every lie a need to escape.

"Penny, if you can just tell me what's wrong, I can help you!"

"No... No, no. Y-you wouldn't understand..."

"Let me try! You can trust me!"

And like a cord snapping, she finally relents.

"You're my friend, right? You promise you're my friend?!"

Taken aback by her sudden want to reveal it, Ruby could only quietly reply.

"Of course..."

Mulling over what she should do next, Penny takes a breath before showing her hands. The skin on both was torn but there was no blood. The limbs were slightly mangled but neither of the two hands possessed any cut sinews. Rather, both hands show something peculiar underneath the skin. Metal.

"I'm... not... a real girl..."

"I... I don't get it. Even if you're just a cyborg that doesn't mean-"

"I'm not... a cyborg... What I mean is that... while most girls are born... I was made. I am the world's first synthetic person capable of generating an aura. I'm... not even real..." She turns away shamefully only to hear tapping on a scroll.

She turns her head to Ruby and panics as she shouts, "R-Ruby! I-I thought you said we were friends! Why are you-" Ruby then hands her scroll to Penny to show an image on the phone. It was an image by Boboiboy with the orange-clad young man smiling happily with a yellow orb-like robot and an old man. It seemed to have been taken as a selfie using his watch.

"I... I don't understand..." Penny says while looking confusedly at the picture.

"A while back, I decided to ask what Boboiboy's life was like before he got whisked away into Remn- I mean Vale. In his old home... he... found this little robot guy right here... he called him... Ocho... bot... I think? And he told me that Ochobot was his best friend. Him, a robot who looks even less human than you, is Boboiboy's dearest friend."

She then looks down and smiles melancholically. "Maybe even more so than me..."

Ruby quickly shakes her head so she won't go into a tangent. "A-anyways, what I'm trying to say here is that it's not how you look like, nor what you are..." To further emphasize her point, she then holds Penny's metal hands as a symbolic gesture of her wholely accepting the robotic girl. "It's about who you are that counts. And you Penny, are my friend..."

The orange-haired girl was stunned by this and before Ruby could react, hugged her. While no liquid dripped on Ruby's back, the slight motion Penny was making made her realize the girl was well and truly sobbing. With that, Ruby remembers how Yang and her dad would stroke the back of her head when she cried and so does so for Penny despite not being sure if she could feel it.

A male voice suddenly calls Penny out from afar.

In response to this, Penny quickly begins panicking before shoving Ruby into a trash heap.

"P-Penny, what's going on? Pe-"

But she gets shushed before she could continue. In the scant few moments she has, Penny tries to explain in a hushed voice. "Long story short, my father doesn't want me to get hurt, he worries a lot about me. So General Ironwood, the person who funded my creation, wanted me protected."

"So that's why those guards were after you?" Ruby asks which receives confirmation from Penny's nod.

They were too late as the Atlesian soldier questions Penny sticking her entire upper torso into a trashcan.

"Uh... Miss Polendina? Why are you... dumpster diving?"

With that Penny begins to panic as she desperately looks to Ruby for an answer. She also whispers to Ruby, "I hiccup when I hide things. What should I do?"

Ruby begins looking around inside the trash can before whispering, "Then say a half-truth. Uhh... just tell them that I'm here. I'll handle the rest."

"But..."

"Trust me"

Reluctantly, Penny replies, "okay."

Penny peeks out before saying, "Uh... my friend Ruby is in here."

Using that as a cue, Ruby launches Cookie from her cape which makes the Nevermore panic and squawk.

"O... kay..." The soldier was weirded out by the crow sounds assuming her 'friend Ruby' is the dumpster-diving crow but not questioning.

"Well... go say farewell to your friend then alright? We have to go soon."

"Very well." She turns back to the dumpster and says farewell.

"Goodbye, friend Ruby!"

From within the dumpster, Ruby waves back before breathing a sigh of relief.

With that, the Nevermore grumbles out, "You owe me more beans," making Ruby roll her eyes.

---Meanwhile with Weiss---

She sports an exhausted look as she descends the CCT. Not from physical exhaustion but emotional daaaamage. She thought her father was still busy with a business transaction and thus thought she could sneak around his gaze when she went to get access to files on the SDC shipments. It turns out that she lost track of time and was forced to confront him over the communication device.

Chronologically, that entire exchange between father and daughter lasted a brief 15 minutes, but those 15 minutes felt like days if not weeks from how tense everything was.

Something that was meant to be a quick "get in, get out" mission, became 5 minutes of civil talk and a 10-minute shouting match which made the exchange all the more exhausting as the surrounding callers were also distracted by the heated exchange.

While she got what her spoils of war being the SDC info after she manage to convince him using the truth about how he might lose money should the bandit heist occur, it was far too pyrrhic for her taste.

She gained info but lost her credit card privileges meaning she'd have to work for her money from here on out, but more importantly, her title is the Schnee Dust Company heiress after she declared her resolve.

If this was her at the start of class, she'd have cowered and put up only some meager resistance and probably get off with a warning. But after meeting the likes of Boboiboy, Ruby, and even Papa Zola, who surprisingly held the most weight out of the three, she instead took a stand which ended up backfiring on her.

Now she can't even change the state of the treatment of Faunus kind as she wanted. She's lost that over her blind outburst. She'd fail a teammate... She'd fail Blake... If only she was faster... if only...

Memories of each time their secret investigation was delayed by Boboiboy just checking up to see how they were doing flash in her head with a hint of anger. But she quickly shakes this off. It's not right for her to blame a concerned teammate for this... It was her fault as the team tactician.

With that depressing thought, she heads down the elevator and off to the rest of her group.

---Meanwhile with Blake---

Blake and Sun looked in awe at a horrific sight in front of them juxtaposed only by the cheering of the White Fang fanatics around them. It was none other than Roman Torchwick, but instead of just a small ship-sized robot, the man was now also boasting to his audience about an even bigger Atlesian mecha, the Atlas Rex. A weapon to surpass the Paladin. The crowd looks in awe at what seems to be the other robot but is even more packed heavily in armor and weaponry.

"Ooooh boy... those are... some BIG robots..." Sun mutters sounding queasy.

"How did he get those..." She asks with shock in her voice.

"As you may have heard. This bad boy right here..." Torchwick then knocks at the leg of the giant metal robot, creating a dull clanking sound.

"It's Atlas' newest toy, to light up the things that go bump in the night. It's due to my... "employers" that we managed to snag a few before they... hit the shelves and it's thanks to my... interns... that we even got a couple... 'limited edition' ones that are sure to give your leaders something fun to use. Behold, Atlas Rex. A discontinued superior model of Paladin."

He then gestures to three humans on the side. One was a short woman with fair skin, pink and brown hair, a pink parasol, and a smirk that screamed smug. The other was a rosy-skinned girl wearing a pink hijab covering locks of reddish brown hair and a blank, almost robotic look on her face. This expression she shared with the other person who was a significantly taller boy with brown skin, short curly hair and wearing a striking varsity jacket. Yet strangely enough, the boy was more expressive than the girl as his face is shown twitching each time a fly landed on his face.

Believing that they were way in over their heads with this, Blake decides to issue a tactical retreat. "We should ditch now."

However, before they could, a large imposing White Fang member calls out, "Will all recruits, please come forward!"

With a shrug, Sun is helplessly pushed forward alongside Blake into a line.

"Guess we're doing this then."

---Meanwhile with Yang---

On their mission, sensing that he might end up losing if he tries and face off against Yang and her two "knights," the man the Valean criminal underworld knows only as Junior sighs before calling his men off. It wasn't worth their egos and property breaking.

The man leads the merry band to the bar area where he offers them drinks. Yang happily takes it, Neptune, as well, but Dove refrains politely.

"Oh? You're not as saying without your boss around?" The yellow Dragon jests to the bronze Dove to which the bird chuckles in good fun.

"Contrary to popular belief, I'm quite conservative. I usually only get into trouble with Cardin when the rest of the crew peer pressures me into joining. And... aside from some cases, I'm like the middle child of our little brotherhood of four, forced to be the responsible one..." the man bites his lips after realizing he blurted too much to someone who's a friendly acquaintance at best.

"Responsible middle? Reckless eldest? I call bullshit." Yang shoots back while casually downing 5 cocktails courtesy of Junior, her face now beet red from alcohol but not quite inebriated.

"Could you at least try to look the part while trying to disprove me?" He chuckles out and the girl chuckles back.

"While I don't mind two teens flirting with each other on my bar," This bit makes Yang choke on her current drink while Dove's eyes widen to where they don't look closed like usual.

Whether he didn't see or didn't care, Junior continues, "I still have a business to run and your friend over there to kick out before Melanie and Miltiades commit murder." He emphasizes this point by pointing at how much Neptune was drunkenly trying to flirt and ogle the twin bodyguards.

"R-right!" Yang blurts out before slapping her face to snap herself out of the daze Junior's words put her in earlier.

Whether it was the alcohol or what Junior said about her and Dove, Yang was still too incoherent to put into words what she wanted to say and so Dove does so instead.

"From what I gather from the rundown she gave, what happened thus far is that you sent men to work for a man named Torchwick. Miss Rose encountered them robbing a dust shop a few months back. She then encountered him once more in a... dock I believe... but this time he was no longer with your men. We were hoping to find leads on this elusive fellow."

Junior listens to all this while nodding. "You, I like you. You have manners, unlike her."

A still inebriated Yang glares at Junior before lifting a middle finger at him.

"Kids these days..." he complains before turning back to Dove.

"As for that... I usually have client confidentiality regarding these kinds of cases but for once I can't tell you simply because I don't know. I only know that he hired some of my men. Past that... none of those men came back."

Neptune then returns suddenly, asking, "So where did they go?" Junior could only be described as dumbfounded by that question as he exclaims, "What kind of stupid question is that? They never came back."

He points at the clueless blue-haired teen as he asks, "Who even is this guy?"

Yang pushes Neptune away as she slurs out, "Don't... worry about him... worry... bout me if I don't get what I want."

Sighing, Dove gently pulls the two away, apologizing to Junior. "Sorry sir, it seems my compatriot here has just had too much to drink. Er... Thank you for your time and sorry for intruding." Afterward, he begins to drag the two away. But before he could leave, Junior calls out to him one more time.

"Hey, kid! The blonde one in the armor."

"Yes?"

"What's your name?"

Dove mulls over it for a bit before supposing it was safe enough to say out loud "Dove. Dove Bronzewing !"

"I like you, Dove. You got respect. When you can, swing by sometime for a friendly chat."

Dove smiles before telling him, "I'll keep it in mind. Thank you, Junior, sir."

---Meanwhile with Boboiboy---

It was later that afternoon, that team JNNPR and Boboiboy decided that today will be a good day to hang out. With the revelation that Nora and Nora Alter can now split apart, everyone goes to have a snack at a local Vale diner. It was a great idea!

"This wasn't a great idea..." Ren mutters as Nora and her other self both glare daggers at each other while trying to pull Ren to their side. On Nora's side were both of their scrolls linked together with a Co-op game of "Teacup Skulls" while on Nora Alter's side was a pile of notebooks and books neatly piled into a stack.

"I want to play with Ren," Nora grunts out as she tugs Ren to her side only for Nora Alter to pull in retaliation, coldly stating, "but I need Ren to help me complete YOUR homework." This exchange continues to happen much to the poor boy's dismay.

On the opposite side of the table was a polarizing mood, as Jaune geeks out about the entirety of a movie series known as "Stellar warfare," starting from "The Spectral Peril," and moving to the latest in the series which was known as, "The Strength Unslumbers," all while Pyrrha looks at him with the smile anyone else would give while looking at a baby being adorable.

Throughout this entire thing, Boboiboy couldn't help but think that he was merely being the third wheel on two fronts.

Having since tuned out both Noras, Ren notices his friend slumped down with a frown while idly swirling a strawberry milkshake.

"Uh... Boboiboy? You alright there?"

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, I'm awesome..."

Boboiboy tries to play it off but Ren did not seem convinced in the slightest.

"Okay then." Ren respects Boboiboy's boundaries and doesn't push further but now everyone else's attention was on him.

"You... don't look okay..."

"Y-yeah man. He's right." Jaune chimes in.

"It's your team, isn't it?" Pyrrha asks with a concerned motherly tone.

"No... it's not that... Well... it's not ALL that... it's just... well... seeing you guys just being all lovey-dovey with each other just makes me feel like a 3rd wheel here, y'know? Makes me feel like that one movie where everyone else was enjoying Valentine's day while I'm the one guy eating his own chocolate on the corner. Y'know?"

Suddenly, the five other people around him all looked at him as if he grew another head and the silence was palpable.

"... Guys?"

And as if those words acted like the pin to a metaphoric balloon, the entirety of team JNNPR explodes into denial with Ren being the only one quiet. In fact, Ren gives Boboiboy an exasperated look as if he knew this exact thing was gonna happen.

Boboiboy tuned out most of the incoherent babbling but caught one specific thing that Nora said.

"Me and Ochre aren't flirting with Renny!"

To that, Boboiboy turns to Nora with an inquisitive look.

"Ochre?"

Nora Alter nods before explaining, thankful that there was this distraction now.

"Indeed. From here on out, I shall refer to myself as Ochre. Earlier today, Nora and I were discussing how calling me Nora Alter just isn't fitting anymore. Unlike your constructs, Boboiboy, I am a separate being to Nora, so calling myself merely her alter would be like letting me to being an aspect of Nora that she is denying. So we searched for a color that is still somewhat orange, but something with a tinge of yellow and so... Ochre."

Boboiboy was pleasantly surprised by this, evident by the perplexed but happy, "Oh?" he let out. "Heh... that's awesome." He praises while striking his signature thumb out.

Even with that brief smile on Boboiboy's face, he couldn't still help but feel like an extra here. At least when it came to team RWBY, he could at least talk to Ruby... or... joke with Yang... or... chase Blake around to finally see what those books of hers were about... or at the very least get pestered by Weiss so that she can borrow his watch. Despite having trained with them for a while... JNPR's company still feels quite lonely.

 However, that sulking was quickly removed when he suddenly feels his watch buzzing. He turns it on only to see it's an emergency call voice mail from Blake. 

"Ruby! Weiss! Yang! Hurry to the docks, now! We've been found out and we don't-"

Team JNPR's focus was immediately on the watch as soon as that familiar voice rang. 

"Boboiboy! What's going on?" Jaune asks, realizing his friend's team is currently in the epicenter of something large.

"I... I don't know..." Boboiboy whispers out from confusion and dumbfoundedness.

 -----Meanwhile, 5 minutes ago with Blake-----

Sun looks around in increasing worry. "Psst... what are we gonna do?" He whispers panicked towards Blake as both are forced closer and closer to the stage by the ushers.

Blake continues to search for a way out, merely replying with, "I'm working on it..."

However, she wasn't fast enough, because the moment Sun tries to take the smallest peeks at Torchwick and his subordinates, he and the orange-haired man meet eye-to-eye despite his mask. The fear is palpable as the man begins to walk toward the two of them with a smirk that just screams "gotcha."

"Uh... he sees us..." Sun tells Blake before nervously waving at Torchwick.

After enough thinking, Blake finally finds a way and mutters, "He can't see in the dark." With one sudden movement, she unsheathes her sword, transforms it into a gun, and fires at the power box, shutting down all of the lights from the warehouse. This causes panic until Torchwick suddenly snaps his fingers, declaring, "We won't be having any of that, now."

Suddenly, three small square lights begin where Roman's "interns" were before one of these transfers its light to what seems to be a fingertip, changing color from blue to an eerie yellow-green, partially illuminating the user's face and hand.

The cracked voice of the dark-skinned boy then seemingly echoes through the room as he speaks.

"Matter transformation power... Change into... Light Dust! L-l-l-light Dust!!"

He then leaps off the stage while firing the green projectile at the warehouse door which creates a blinding rush of light, forcing everyone to stand in one place and cover their eyes at the sheer brightness of the transformed door. With the light returned, Blake and Sun see themselves surrounded.

"Well... well... well... look what the cat dragged in," Torchwick smirks as he points his cane at the two intruders.

One of the White Fang members audibly gasps as he says. "Wait... you're Blake Belladonna!"

Blake proceeds to hastily call all of RWBBY, not realizing she called the group chat including Boboiboy.

However, before she could complete it, the scroll was shot off of her hands by a White Fang marksman.

"It seems... I'm not the only defecting against their own kind here. Turns out... there was an imposter among us. And unluckily for you... I manage to spot your suspicious activity before you could escape through the ventilation."

"Why are you on their side now?!" One of the White Fang recruits asks in a betrayed shout. "You, alongside Adam, were renowned in our organization!"

Blake clenches her fists hearing that while looking down, unable to look back and retort. However, Sun decides to fight for her.

"Because she isn't crazy like the rest of y'all! She realized that the freedom fighting group has devolved into a human-hating group that's no longer trying to fight for equality, but for supremacy."

Blake looks starstruck hearing this, only being able to mutter out, "Sun..." in her astonishment as she looks at his back.

He smirks back before looking back at the crowd, shouting, "Don't you all get it?! If this movement wins, you will all become like the very thing you all fought against!"

After shouting that, Sun takes out Riyu Jingu Bang and takes a fighting pose with the staff in dual Nunchuck mode.

"And that ends... right here!"

Hearing this, the crowd goes quiet, unsure what to do. However, the roar of a motor breaks the silence as an earlier speaker, a large Faunus man revs his chainsaw. He proceeds to shout, "TRAITOR!" before rushing at the two, to which the other experienced members joined in. Meanwhile, the newly recruited and the non-combat personnel were escorted away to safety.

The two are forced into the fight of their lives as a horde of enemies rush at them.

Blake shouts, "Don't use lethal force!" As she parries an enemy, making Sun shout, "Are you kidding me?!" Blake explains herself, stating that, "these guys don't have aura and as future huntsmen, we have to keep our slates as clean as possible."

The two of them held themselves well against their many opponents if only due to the stacked advantages of both having auras, semblances, proper training and the snipers being unable to help due to possible friendly casualties. From the way most of these people were fighting, it was pretty clear that most of these were rudimentarily trained at best.

That was until the large guy from earlier showed up. He begins attacking Blake with unrelenting ferocity while casually tanking her strikes forcing her AND Sun back all on his own without even needing a semblance, just his aura and rage.

"What the hell is with this guy?!" Sun exclaims as he jumps back and summons two clones to rush him down. The man responds by doing a double lariat before quickly performing a Spartan kick to counter a shadow clone kick Blake tried to use on him.

Luckily, she knocks him back due to having infused the clone with fire dust, which proceeds to knock the man back.

"We have to go, now!" Blake commands to which Sun does not object.

Both begin running through the rooftops to run off.

Meanwhile, with the White Fang, the masked chainsaw man coughs standing up. He then glares at Torchwick, shouting, "Exterminator my ass! Why didn't you help?!"

Torchwick is not at all perturbed by the man's rage, merely tapping the cigar he had been smoking to remove the ashes.

The man begins marching angrily towards Torchwick, before staring the slightly shorter man down with steam escaping from his mouth and hate burning in his eyes.

"Fine, you want a reason?" Torchwick then casually aims his cane off to the side, blowing up the wall. "My method of fighting is... a bit to incompatible with your little Zerg rush over there."

Leaving the man standing there, Torchwick smirks and walks off, before giving commands to his "interns."

"Suit up, we're gonna tidy some loose ends up."

Back with Blake, she and Sun continue to walk through the top of the buildings before stopping.

"You think we lost em?" Sun asks still panting to which Blake looks back.

But before she could answer, the door that turned into hardlight dust suddenly explodes as two mechs suddenly burst forth.

To be continued...