//------------------------------// // Dancing With Myself // Story: The Multiverse in a Nutshell // by Pennington Inkwell //------------------------------// "So, what happened?" Sunset asked, keeping one hand on the younger girl's shoulder. Rainbow Dash felt slightly boggled at the change in Sunset's composure. Not five minutes ago, Sunset had been having a nervous breakdown, but the moment Ruby had said that something was wrong with her friends, Sunset had forgotten about her own problems and put all of her attention on someone else's. As soon as there was someone else in trouble, Sunset was all business... which wasn't a HUGE change from before they'd been separated, but Dash was seeing it a lot more clearly, now. Ruby's eyes seemed to be locked to the floor in shame, with more weight on the young girl's shoulders than anyone her age ought to have. "Well, we were on a mission to keep the numbers of Baalchion's troops down and get more information about the portal... But we ran into this monster that was like... living darkness?" "A nyctomorph..." Rainbow added. "They're usually high-ranking commanders in Baalchion's invasions. They're shapeshifters made out of darkness. The more complicated their body is, the more powerful they are." "And this one was really complicated!" Ruby took back over the conversation without even thinking. "Blake said it was... fractional?" "Fractal." Rainbow shook her head. "I've never fought a fractal one, that's almost as powerful as they get." "It saw us before we could report back, and we had to fight our way out... But it was too tricky. It kept shapeshifting into all these weird shapes and dodging our attacks. The only one who could land a hit at all was Yang, but then it did something to her arm! Not to mention it regenerated really fast... Even my silver eyes only kept it away for a few seconds." Ruby shook her head in a hopeless expression at the memory, one that made Rainbow cringe with guilt. She'd been fighting on the same battlefield, but she had missed ALL of this. If she'd known there was a nyctomorph around, she would have let the portal guardian get away to go help these other girls. "Weiss used her glyphs to hold it back, but when it touched them, it hurt her somehow and she started babbling about the end- I guess she was seeing that 'heat death' thing your friend said that Baalchion is trying to stop- but she still kept going to keep us safe until she passed out! The only thing that was able to stop it was Yang's semblance!" Ruby finally looked up, eyes wide. "And it was CRAZY! It was WAY stronger than it normally is, like she was going to light the whole world on fire!" "Okay, remembering her semblance..." Sunset rubbed at the back of her head, "I REALLY wish I could have seen that." "But after that... her arm was gone." Ruby looked down again. "She burned out whatever kind of infection that thing gave her, but her arm was just... charcoal." Sunset's eyes grew wider in horror, but Rainbow Dash wasn't going to miss the opportunity to mitigate the bad news. "Actually, it's not gone gone! It's a technique high-level Chiracian fire priests use! I don't know how she managed to pull if off by sheer instinct, but her arm could potentially be even better if she starts training to use fire magic!" Rainbow tried to sound upbeat, but Ruby and Sunset didn't seem to think it was as good of a thing as she did. "She's been really upset about it... she hasn't even gotten out of bed since." Ruby shook her head. "I've never seen her like this. Even if her arm is still there, every time she tries to use it, it just crumbles to pieces and she has to wait for it to re-form again. And Weiss..." she nearly choked on her teammate's name, there. "Weiss has been in a coma and won't wake up. If it wasn't for this storm, she wouldn't even be here, she SHOULD have been moved to a hospital ages ago!" Sunset had fallen quiet at that, her hand rubbing at the bottom of her chin as she thought carefully. "I can't make any promises... but I've pulled Penn out of a coma, before. Twice, if you count that time he was possessed. I might be able to help Weiss." "REALLY?" Ruby's eyes were practically shining with hope as she grabbed at Sunset's arm. "Please, please please!" "Hold on!" Sunset raised her other hand to try and dampen Ruby's enthusiasm. "I don't know the specifics, and mind-reading isn't an exact science! The best I can do is promise to try." Rainbow arched an eyebrow at her friend. "When did you graduate from mind-reading to curing comas? That's new." Sunset unconsciously fiddled with her geode with her hand that wasn't being clung to by Ruby. "Well, when Penn was almost lobotomized by Salem, I tried to just spur some memories to help his brain heal. The next thing I knew, I was walking around inside his head! After that, I just had to go deep enough to find him and bring him back out. Since then, it was like my powers grew so that I can help people who are unconscious for some reason." Rainbow took a moment to pull her own geode up for a critical look. "How come YOUR geode just gives you new powers, but I have to become a Chiracian priestess to get new ones?" Sunset just shrugged. "Necessity is the mother of evolution, right?" As the three of them arrived at the door Ruby had been leading them to, Ruby stepped forward and gave a firm knock at the door. "Yang! It's me! I brought Sunset! Rainbow's here, too!" The voice on the other side was low, too low for anyone but Ruby, who had her ear pressed against the door, to hear. "Okay! We're coming in!" Ruby replied, not waiting another second before reaching for the handle and practically throwing the door open. What's waiting on the other side isn't much of a surprise to Rainbow, since she'd been consulted more than a few times as the Chiracian "expert" on dealing with the girls' injuries, but the way Sunset gasped and covered her mouth with her hands drove home the fact that things were just about as bad as they looked. Weiss, the smaller, pale girl dressed mostly in white, was laying on a bed surrounded by medical equipment. Thankfully, she was still able to breathe on her own, but a mask had still been placed over her face to provide extra oxygen and detect if her breathing stopped. A small tube had been passed through the mask to travel down her throat and provide nutrition, and a large bag of saline fluid had been directly hooked into her arm via an IV drip. The way she had sunken into the bed made it look as if she hadn't moved from the spot in ages, and made her lithe frame look more wiry and skinny. Yang was sitting in the bed on the other side of the room, not looking much better than their unconscious friend. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her golden hair was looking less like a wreath of flames and more like a currently-occupied rat's nest. The fight was gone out of her eyes, and she was clearly forcing her smile as she turned and gave them a wave with her bad hand. Whatever she had done lately, it looked like the blackened remains of her hand were only half-formed from the last time it had been destroyed, more like a fire-blasted skeleton than a functional limb. She looked almost gaunt, like something had been slowly draining the life out of her. "Hey, Sleepwalker..." she mumbled. "Yang?" Sunset's response was barely enough of a context clue for Rainbow to realize "Sleepwalker" had been referring to her. "What happened?" Yang sighed and leaned back, turning to look up at the ceiling. "Well, if you ask just about anybody, what happened is that we got lucky... not that it feels like it." "She's right." Rainbow interjected. "That nyctomorph got under her skin, literally. Usually, if one of them gets their barbs into you, they never let go. Both of them are lucky to be alive." Sunset either didn't hear Rainbow or was ignoring her as she slowly walked up to Weiss's bed, taking a moment to brush away a few errant strands of hair from her face. "If this is good luck, then I worry some of my luck must have rubbed off on you last time I was here..." she mumbled. Yang huffed, but seemed to keep her comment to herself. Sunset didn't notice the moment of restraint as she looked more closely over Weiss. Finally, she cupped the side of the younger girl's face in her hand. "Okay... I'm going to try to wake her up. I don't know how long it'll take, though." "I've been watching her this long, a bit longer isn't going to change anything..." Yang murmured. "After that, we'll all get together and we can swap stories about all of our adventures!" Sunset looked back up at Yang, giving her a happy smile. "Team RWBYS never has a dull moment, right?" Sunset paused, taking a second to look closely at Yang for a few seconds. After that, she reached into her pocket for her phone. She typed furiously for a few seconds, just long enough for Rainbow to get curious who she was messaging. Before she could peek over her friend's shoulder, however, Sunset hit the send button and shoved the device back in her pocket. With whatever it was she was planning set in motion, Sunset pulled a chair next to Weiss's bed, placed her hand back on her face, and took a deep breath. "Here goes..." With a flash of magical light in her eyes, Sunset fell into the familiar trance the Rainbow had seen a hundred times before of reading someone's memories. Unlike what she was used to, however, this one didn't stop after only a second, it was continuous with no end in sight. Rainbow awkwardly rubbed at the back of her neck and cleared her throat. "S-So... sounds like you girls know Sunset pretty well, too, huh?" "We're teammates... Ruby murmured, eyes fixed firmly on the scene of Sunset and Weiss. "Sunset was on our team for our first semester, and then we all uncovered a plot by the White Fang and saved all of Vale together." "Then she climbed in their car and took off into the Multiverse again... looking for you." Yang added as she flopped over onto her side, pulling the blankets up to her shoulder. "Turns out that if she'd just stayed, you would have just come straight to her." "While that is true, if Sunset Shimmer had not left, a civilization of endermen would still be terrorized by a vengeful dragon, an entire civilization of monsters trapped underground would have been left to die as their universe disintegrated, a animation studio filled with trapped human souls would never have been set free, the Broken Universe Coalition of Knowledgeable Lorekeepers, Explorers, and Researchers would never have been established, and the material which is now being used to save your world would never have been acquired." As Rainbow pulled her phone out of her pocket, it took a second for her brain to put together the voice with the AI that had installed itself on her phone yesterday. "Were you eavesdropping on us?" "It is my experience that constant vigilance is the best means by which to protect users." "Well, cut it out!" "Negative. Your safety is among my primary directives." "Don't bother..." Ruby sighed as she pulled up a chair beside Sunset and took a seat. "Trust me, we've all tried. There's no talking her out of it. It's her way of showing she cares." "Affirmative." "It's creepy." Rainbow takes a second to glare at her phone before shoving it as deep into her pocket as she could, hoping to muffle the overreaching AI. Instead, the voice simply jumps around the room, coming from each person's personal device before eventually settling on coming from Sunset's pocket. "Creepiness of my duty of care aside, the point still stands. Without Sunset Shimmer's departure, hundreds of individuals would be either dead or still trapped in perpetual torment. Our mission, however bittersweet it may be, requires continuous motion. The same so-called 'magic' which empowered the Rainbooms to save their world multiple times has been leading us to save numerous others." Silence fell for a moment as everyone seemed to process what Isis was telling them. "If I try to tell you MY story, it'll take all day..." Sunset's words echoed in Rainbow's mind. "It... sounds like you guys have been dealing with the unknown a lot better than we have." Ruby sighed. "Not necessarily. Our team has suffered numerous losses and setbacks, including one catastrophic failure that resulted in the death of a core team member. By my record, Team RWBY has not suffered such an event." "Wait, somebody DIED?" Everybody, even Yang, leaned forward in surprise, and a couple of worried looks were thrown Sunset's way. Ruby, no longer content with listening to the voice coming from Sunset's phone, pulled out her scroll to gape at directly. "WHO?" "Affirmative. My apologies, but Sunset Shimmer has requested that I not speak in detail of that event. It was quite traumatic for all involved. In honesty, I may have misspoken in telling you what I have. However, having observed your team's growth and success on missions, I felt the need to mitigate your discouragement with a dose of what Penn would call 'reality.'" "But... if a core team member died..." Ruby's eyes widened. "Is that why Missy-" "Missy is quite safe and sound." "Are you talking about when you went offline for a while?" Yang asked flatly. "Negative, though the need for my restoration to a previous version COULD be equated to a form of death, in a philosophical manner of speaking. No, I mean critical damage resulting in the complete cessation of biological function for a period well beyond the point of brain death, meaning that resuscitation is impossible." Rainbow chewed on her lip for a moment. "Yeah, that sounds pretty dead." "Affirmative." "Wait... didn't Penn say his 'biological functions' had stopped?" Yang raised a questioning eyebrow. Ruby needed only another second to catch on to her sister's train of thought. "Oh my gosh, Penn's a zombie." "Negative. Penn is NOT a zombie." "So he wasn't the one who died?" Yang gestured with her good hand, inviting Isis to correct her. The long pause in the conversation was all but a confirmation to the girls that they had come upon the answer. "...we are still trying to ascertain a definition for WHAT he is. He is... unique. Something we are unable to define." "But you're, like, the smartest AI EVER!" Ruby argued. "You've been all over the multiverse, how can you not define what he is?" "Ruby Rose, while I appreciate your praise, I am NOT the 'smartest artificial intelligence ever,' and, even with my constant assimilation of new systems and exploratory drones, the multiverse exists at a scale incomprehensible to anyone, including myself, and I have explored only the smallest fraction of it. My dataset is... woefully minute." Rainbow Dash couldn't be sure, but did she hear a note of... sadness in the computer's voice when she talked about how little she knew? "So, Penn died and came back as something different, and you can't figure out what?" Yang asked. "Negative... it was the later possession by a reality-warping demon that changed the nature of his biology." There was stunned silence in the room as everyone present tried to wrap their heads around what had been said. And that, of course, was when Sunset finally moved again, taking a deep gasp of air as she pulled away from Weiss. In less time than it took to blink, Rainbow was up out of her seat and supporting Sunset, making sure she was alright. Sunset was okay, mostly focused on taking one deep breath after another, but her whole body was shivering as if she was freezing. "J-J-Jeez... It's a whole other ballgame in there..." she stammered, rubbing at her arms in an attempt to warm herself. "There's a whole icy queendom in her head..." "Yeah, that sounds about right..." Yang gave a glance to the other girls, as if confirming that they weren't going to try to unpack everything Isis had just told them. "They don't call her 'Ice Queen' for nothing!" "Did it work?" Ruby asked, approaching the bed one small footstep at a time. "Whatever happened, that thing's backwards way of thinking was in direct exposure to Weiss's mind through her semblance." Sunset sighed as the shivering finally petered out. "She saw everything that Baalchion's troops are so scared of, everything they're fighting for, but none of it really made sense to her." Sunset rolled her eyes. "If Penn was here, he'd probably say it was like running a car in reverse gear while it's rolling forward. Gears grind, things go against how they were made to be... It nearly destroyed her mind." Ruby visibly wilted at Sunset's words, but a few seconds later, Weiss's body began to move. She squirmed in place as a soft cough rocked through her. Sunset smirked a little. "Of course, I wasn't going to give up on my teammate THAT easily..." A moment later, icy-blue eyes fluttered open, and delicate lips formed a word around the obstruction of a feeding tube. "R-Ruby?" "WEISS!" Ruby almost threw herself onto the bed, only to pause at the edge, wildly pinwheeling her arms to avoid crashing into her partner. Unable to catch her balance, Ruby seemed to settle on falling to the side being better than falling on top of Weiss, and collapsed to the side in a heap. A second later, she was leaning over the edge of the bed, staring at Weiss, her wide eyes shimmering with tears of joy. Weiss watched her partner collapse to the ground with a roll of the eyes and a telltale hint of a smile at the corners of her mouth. "Dolt..." "YOU'RE OKAAAAAY!" Rainbow, for her part, wasn't quite sure she could believe what she was seeing. For her part, when she'd been asked about what to do, the only thing she could think of was to take Weiss to a healer from Radian, and even then there was little chance she would have recovered. Healers there really didn't understand humans very well, as she'd learned first-hand. This? This was nothing short of miraculous. "Dang, SunShim. You weren't kidding..." Sunset gave a soft chuckle and patted Rainbow's hand on her shoulder. "It's what we do." Rainbow blinked, taking her eyes away from Ruby's clumsy attempts to hug someone with an IV, oxygen mask, and feeding tube. "What do you mean?" "Our little crew. We can't be everywhere all the time, but," her hand came up to fiddle with her necklace, "the geode leads us to people that need help, and we help them. We can't put the multiverse back together, but we can help the people in front of us." Before Rainbow can really digest what she's saying, a flurry of rose petals and red fabric nearly bowls both of them over. Sunset somehow takes it in stride, as if she was expecting Ruby's tackle-hug in advance. "Thank you..." the smaller girl whispers into Sunset's shoulder, burying her face in her shirt and hair. Sunset gave her a gentle pat. "My pleasure." "What... happened?" Weiss whimpered, making an attempt to sit up in her bed, only to notice the tube running into her mouth for the first time. "That monster messed you up pretty good. You've been in a coma for a while." Yang spoke up. "Sunset just got here last night, and she used those mind-reading powers to pull you back out of it." Weiss's eyes slowly turned from Yang to Sunset. Sunset gave her a gracious nod, and Weiss seemed to know that returning that nod was all that needed to be said between them for the moment. "Sunset Shimmer? I have something that should be brought to your attention." For a second, Rainbow, Ruby, and Yang all stiffened. Is she going to rat us out for asking about Penn dying? "You asked me to inform you of any future 'Kitchen Idol' events. One is about to begin." That made Sunset straighten in her chair a bit with an excited grin. "I should have known he wouldn't be sleeping. Do you have a camera there?" "Affirmative." "Come here, you guys HAVE to see this..." Sunset snickered slightly as she pushed herself AND Ruby up into a standing position. With Ruby finally breaking the hug, Sunset knelt next to the bed and held up her phone so Weiss could see the screen. "You wanna see what Penn's like when he thinks nobody's watching?" "Are you sure we should spy on-" "Uh, yeah!" Yang's excited reply cut off Ruby's worry about being rude. "Think you can send it to my scroll?" "Affirmative." There was a series of buzzing noises around the room as everyone's devices all turned on. Even Rainbow grudgingly pulls her phone out of its banishment at the bottom of her pocket. The picture on the screen shows a shot of Penn from above in a dorm kitchen. He was tying a black apron around his waist. Embroidered across the front is a pair of white-outlined horns and a wide grin of even-spaced teeth, with the words Devilishly Delicious! embroidered across the front. Even as he was still going through the process of getting things ready, he was bobbing up and down to loud music that was playing in the foreground as he set out ingredients and switched on the stovetop. Everyone instantly knew where this was going, and Rainbow snickered. This was going to be great. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WELLLLLLLLLLLLLLL I looked all over the wo-orld! And there's every type of gi-irl! But you empty eyes seem to pass me by and leave me dancing with myse-elf! Penn was absolutely, completely unaware of anything outside of himself, the music, and the cinnamon-nutmeg-vanilla custard he was currently beating into a smooth consistency. He was letting every ounce of tension and stress go. It was all working itself out from the knot in his chest, then traveling up out into his extremities, and then flung out of him as he wildly moved his limbs in time to the music. To call it "dancing" felt presumptuous, he never thought of himself as having that kind of coordination and he never had a lesson in his life. But it was pure, raw, and made him burst out laughing as he shuffled his feet and swung his arms in whatever way felt natural. This was HIS kitchen, if only briefly, and he had enough control here to fool himself into thinking he could relax. BEEEEEEP! As the song moved faster, he made his way closer and closer to the oven. Not a single movement was out of time with the melody if he could help it, though it wasn't uncommon for him to nearly lose his balance once every few seconds. Unfortunately, he had to bring the wild movements under control long enough to yank open the oven, throw on a pair of oven mitts, and carefully pull a tray out of the heat. Still, even with the hot tray in his hands, he couldn't help bobbing up and down and timing each footstep to the beat. The thick-cut bread he'd been toasting to mimic staleness certainly wouldn't complain about the rough ride. I wanna sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat Sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat Sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat, sweat SWEAT, SWEAT, SWEAT, OOOOOOOOOOOOOW! As soon as the tray was out of his hands, he spun wildly on the ball of his foot to match the joyous scream in the lyrics, flinging his arms to the side and sending the mitts flying against the counter with a low slapping noise. Somehow, he'd managed to land them back in their proper spot, and he managed a quick fist pump before going back to his usual wild motions. As the song faded out, he let his shoulders sag as he gasped for breath. "This... is WAY more fun... than my calisthenics..." he was practically grinning from ear to ear. Something about the joy of cooking combined with losing himself in the music and the motion was just... absolute bliss, a few blessed minutes at a time. No one would judge him or laugh at him here, no matter how overenthusiastic he could get. and he needed this. "Would you like me to assemble a playlist for you based on your previously chosen songs while cooking?" Penn shook his head, giving the drone sitting on the counter a small pat on the head. "Nah, I'd rather pick out whatever it is I need one song at a time." "Understood. Which song would you like next?" Penn thought for a moment as he strolled over to the stovetop. He didn't flinch away at the hissing, spitting, and popping of the most recent batch of bacon strips in the pan. With a wooden spoon, he poked at the strips to confirm their firmness, then slipped a spatula underneath them and picked them up out of the pan. "Hmmm... Shut Up and Dance With Me." "Affirmative. Playing Shut Up and Dance by WALK THE MOON..." As the opening guitar plucks began to play, Penn felt a momentary pang of loneliness. It was a love song, if you paid attention, and he had nobody like that to think of... Eh, screw it. This beat was too funky fresh to NOT dance to. "Oh don't you dare look back, just keep your eyes on me! I said 'You're holding back!' She said 'Shut up and dance with me!'" For a moment, his mind lingered on an image, a metaphor that felt shockingly appropriate. It was a picture of something he'd seen a thousand times before: Sunset Shimmer riding shotgun in the seat beside him, hair blowing in the wind from an open car window. Sure, it wasn't the kind of 'love at first dance' story that the song was telling, but if there had ever been a woman in his life who'd swept him up into a grand adventure without abandon OR preparation, then it was Sunset. And for this, that thought was enough to brush off the last vestiges of dissonance with the song's message and set him free again. "She took my arm! I don't know how it happened!" Penn snickered at that. Technically, he'd been the one who towed Sunset by the arm that fateful day, but... She'd certainly been the one leading him into the unknown since then. "We took the floor and she SAAAAAAID! With the freshly-cooked bacon moved into the plated pile already in the oven to keep warm, there was a slick layer of rendered fat on the bottom of the skillet. He once again resorted to his barely-controlled shuffle as he picked up a piece of stale-toasted bread and dunked it into the custard. He made sure each side had a chance to soak in a hefty amount of liquid before transferring it to the hot pan. He gave a happy little shimmy as it began to sizzle and crackle in the grease, ensuring that some of that savory bacon flavor would infuse into the sweet French toast he was making. That shimmy turned into a shuffle, which turned into a moonwalk back to the counter (one of the only moves he'd ever bothered practicing) to grab the next slice of bread and dunk it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Huh... he kinda dances like Dad." Ruby mused. "If dad was drunk, maybe!" Yang corrected. "I mean, he's not THAT bad... right?" Rainbow tried her best to salvage Sunset's feelings, but her friend seemed not to have noticed the other girls statements. Sunset was watching the screen with a mix of what looked like amusement and pride. "Laugh all you want, girls, but I've noticed something you haven't!" Sunset smirked. Yang, Ruby, and Sunset all brought their screens up closer to look for details in the video, but it was Weiss who spoke first. "Why... so much food?" Sunset snickered as the realization made its way across the room. "Penn always cooks enough to share." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Two slices would be doable, then he'd need to make more bacon to restore the grease in the pan. He'd never been a fan of most things about Texas, but "Texas Toast" sized bread made for a great base for French toast. After a few minutes, and by the time the song had run out, he had finished with both slices, eaten the first one (which had been dark and unevenly cooked, the first pancake, slice of toast, et cetera was always a sacrifice to learn an unfamiliar stovetop's intricacies, never fit to serve others). He barely even needed to think about what song would come next, what he needed would just come to him by instinct. "Moves Like Jagger." "Cha Cha Slide." "Break the Rules." "Uptown Funk." He paused when that one ended, taking a second to think as he stared at the quickly-growing pile of toast slices. Technically none of the girls are around, so... no holds barred, right? "Party Rock Anthem." The pounding synth was enough to get him jumping up and down, and he could practically feel his heartbeat moving in time to the music as every ounce of his being was permeated by the need to just cut loose. The first time through the chorus was a blast of nostalgia... but also a reminder of exactly what he was getting into. This was definitely a song he couldn't listen to when Sunset was within hearing distance. In the club, PARTY ROCK! Lookin' for your girl? She on my- Just as he spun around (while definitely NOT making a gesture to his belt buckle), he found himself practically nose-to-nose with a terrifying face. The blonde hair and fair-colored skin didn't make an OUNCE of difference in recognizing her. "WAAAAAAAGH!" Acting purely on instinct, Penn grabbed the handle of the frying pan and swung it at Salem's head. It connected with a sound comically similar to a gong, sending the dark witch stumbling back a few steps. To Penn's horror, she seemed only mildly fazed by the blow, clutching her hand at the impact point and giving him a crimson-eyed glare through her fingers. Penn was less worried about angering her than he was with finding an escape route. Unfortunately the only door was past Salem, and trying to run her around the room to clear that path wouldn't work, she was a ranged attacker, which left the only option as- Well, at least it had been snowing. All of these mental calculations happened in less than a second, mostly by instinct. Penn made a mad dash for the window, leaping with every ounce of adrenaline-fueled strength in his legs, only to stop in mid-air, frozen in place. He'd taken too long thinking about it. "For goodness sake..." Salem grumbled, picking the pan off of the floor and setting it back on top of the stove. "I was simply coming in to see what smelled so delicious." A beckoning motion of her finger was enough to levitate him away from the window and back in front of the stove. "Now... if I let you go, can you promise not to act like a frightened animal and talk to me like an adult?" Penn tried and failed to nod, resorting to moving his eyes up and down to indicate his agreement. "Good." Salem snapped her fingers, releasing him from the spell and dropping him back down to the floor. Penn grabbed at his chest, where his heart was threatening to break free of his ribs. "Why... the HELL... did you sneak up on me?" Salem rolled her eyes. "It's been so long since I wasn't surrounded by my own acolytes, I'd forgotten how quietly I tend to tread. I wanted to see what you were cooking, so I looked. To be fair, you DID give me a traumatic brain injury in return." "YOU SCARED ME OUT OF MY WITS!" Penn shouted as he placed a shaky hand on the counter and pulled himself onto his feet. Salem was a manipulator, a master of turning people against one another and using their deepest desires against them. The idea that she was just tone deaf to social cues after so long was ridiculous... which meant she'd OBVIOUSLY scared him on purpose. Salem gave a shrug. "We'll call it even, then." Penn wanted to reach for another weapon and use it until he felt like that statement was ACTUALLY true, but... attempts at cardiac arrest aside, they WERE still allies, and that truce wasn't worth risking for all the satisfaction in the world. "Well, now you know what smelled good, can I go back to cooking?" "Certainly." There were several seconds of tense silence between them as each waited for the other to take action. "Well?" "I don't like other people in my kitchen." "I want to watch." Salem tilted her head and smiled in a way that made Penn's skin crawl. Combined with her disguise, she almost looked... genuine. "Why?" "If we are going to be working together, we should get to know one another better." Salem stepped back and pulled up a chair at the table where he'd been setting the finished food. Delicately picking up a fork between her fingers, she stabbed a few slices of toast and loaded them onto a plate, then plucked a few strips of bacon to set alongside them. To finish her meal, she drizzled a thin layer of syrup over the top from the hefty jug waiting to be used. "If my memory serves me, then talking over a meal is a good way to find common ground." "I'm not eating..." Penn grumbled. Realizing he couldn't force her to leave, he sighed and laid a few more strips of bacon into the pan. "But you seem entirely at ease here. Eating or not, you're comfortable." Penn grimaced as his gut clenched. "Exactly how long were you standing there?" "Long enough." Penn grabbed the bridge of his nose as the pan got back up to temperature and the bacon started to crackle and spit. "Great... fantastic." "I'm surprised to see that your enthusiasm is equally distributed across numerous aspects of your life." Penn bit at his tongue, arguing with himself about whether or not he wanted to engage her in conversation. If he stayed quiet, he could keep playing his cards close to his chest... Except, of course, for the fact that Salem was smart enough to get a good read on him, anyway, whether he tried or not. Was it better to antagonize her in a feeble attempt to keep his secrets, or risk letting her getting to know him better voluntarily and keeping things civil between them? "I always have." He sighed as he turned over the bacon to cook on the other side. Was it necessary? Not really. Did it put off turning around and looking her in the eye? Yes. "I could accept it, or bottle myself up my whole life. I decided early on that it would be better to just love things deeply than be apathetic to everything." "An easy way to heartbreak," Salem mused. "Love deep, laugh out loud, and cry when you need to." He shrugged. "It's not easy, but that's how I keep feeling alive." "And you think that's sustainable?" "Maybe, maybe not. But that's what I choose, for as long as I can bear it." "Hm." Penn couldn't be sure, but... Salem's voice was lacking something. It wasn't looking down on him. It was lacking that layer of dripping cynicism and condescension. He lifted the current batch of bacon out of the pan, then dropped in a few more strips and turned around. Salem was... still sitting there, just watching him. She was already halfway through her meal, and she took a moment to point at him with her fork. "You've got talent. This is quite good." "Th-Thanks... The secret is the nutmeg." Penn raised an eyebrow, and Salem rolled her eyes as she took another bite. His suspicion of her was obviously grating on her nerves, but she was keeping it to herself for the moment. Now that he could think rationally again, he felt kind of stupid for thinking she was going to just leap out of the chair at him the moment he let his guard down. "Nutmeg?" "Freshly ground. Well, that and just a bunch of other little things..." he stepped over to pick up a piece of the toasted bread and offer it to her. "Normally I'd use stale bread, but you can mimic the effect by drying it out in the oven. The custard is made with more cream than milk, the pan is greased by cooking bacon, and so on and so on." "Interesting..." She noted the piece and turned it over in her hands for a few seconds. "I've always let other people do the cooking when I was human, and then after I was given my curse, eating became more of a luxury than a necessity." "It's an art form, if you ask me." Penn shrugged as she handed him back the piece. He inspected it for any contaminants before dunking the piece into the custard to soak. "I love the feeling of seeing someone enjoy something I made, and food is probably the best. It's fun to make, fun to partake, and open to endless creativity." "And here I thought words were your sole medium." Penn was on the defensive, giving out personal information left and right. He needed to get something back out of this. "If I remember right, you're quite the reader, yourself." "Only until I was able to go out and see the world for myself." Salem tutted as she looked down at her now-empty plate, then speared another slice and began using a piece of it to mop up the leftover syrup. "Never dabbled in fiction?" Penn raised an eyebrow. "For a time. But once you know every formula, it all becomes terribly boring." She didn't bother looking up from her plate. " Penn pondered her point for a moment. "I would think that's like saying buildings are boring once you understand architecture. Sure, you can understand the framework well enough to see what it'll become, but it's what's put on top of it that lets new ideas shine." He gave a small shrug before turning over the currently-cooking piece of toast and groaned inwardly. Re-heating the pan meant that there had to be another sacrificial slice to get the temperature right. "But hey, to each their own. I can't stand apocalypse movies because you know from the start that the whole thing is an exercise in futility, for instance, which is basically the same complaint. I can see where you're coming from." There was a long pause as they each seemed to be searching for an answer. "Why-" "How-" Both cut off. "Go ahead." Penn waved his hand absently over his shoulder as he took the sacrificial piece off of the pan and started the process of throwing in another few strips of bacon. "How do you work so smoothly with your knowledge?" Salem made a scoffing noise. "I would think you would slip into the same pitfall I did at least once or twice." "Which was what?" Penn tried to ask the question in the least-disrespectful voice possible. "Trusting in what things should be to the point of letting uncontrolled variables upend your plans." Penn needed a minute to think about that, turning around and leaning against the stovetop to look at her. He took a bite out of the still-warm piece of almost-burnt toast. "I think... Sunset. Because I absolutely WOULD have multiple times if I were doing this on my own. But she doesn't see TV shows or movies or books when she looks at people. She just sees... people. And people act like people, not characters, so I try to plan around that." A dark thought that had been pestering him since their arrival pushed on the boundaries of his thoughts, forcing his brow to furrow. "Although... I'm starting to worry that the cosmic script might not be so easily flipped." "Oh?" "Well, you see-" Penn looked up, suddenly reminded of exactly WHO he was talking to behind the magical disguise. "Actually... it's not work getting worked up over yet. I need a little more proof before I go spouting off about multiversal balance-" "You think that time might be trying to correct itself." Salem made the statement bluntly and sent any hopes Penn had of keeping his theory to himself crashing down. "I've noticed it, as well. Certain central events finding a way to still happen in this new timeline. Remember, I ALSO know many of the same things that you do." Penn's eyes flicked over to Isis's drone, reminding him that the two of them weren't alone. "Let's discuss that some other time. Information isn't as secure here at Beacon as I would like, our welcome party proved that." Salem chuckled at that, a sound which sent shivers running up and down Penn's spine. "Are you referring to the mechanical dragon in the room or the living one in the air vent?" There was a sound of whispered cursing and the scrambling of claws in the ceiling as an unseen observer sprinted out of the room. "Great... another person who saw me dance without me knowing..." Penn grumbled. "Hope she liked the show." "What was your question?" Salem set her empty plate back onto the table. A short gesture of elemental magic was enough to conjure water into an empty glass that had been waiting for orange juice, and she began to take small sips. "Why are you trying so hard to get along with me right now?" Penn kept his posture as calm as he could, but inside he was wound as tight as he could be. "You have to know that I'm going to do everything in my power NOT to send us on that mission together, so our ability to work together is irrelevant." The pan was ready for another slice of toast now, but he was waiting. Salem seemed to ponder the question for a while, as well. "Because I have yet to think of a plan that will get us into the lair of our enemy that doesn't involve working together." "I'd be lying if I said I don't think you're trying to prepare for when the terms of our truce expire, if you'll forgive me the cynicism." Salem's eyes narrowed. "I already told you, after we cease to be allies, I have no interest in continuing to pursue you or your friends. You're all still more trouble than you're worth in that regard, and getting worse every day." She took a sip of her drink. "If you want the whole truth, I think that, under the correct circumstances, we might even make fine allies." Penn snorted at that, only to immediately stiffen as he realized the involuntary insult he'd given. "Is it really so absurd that circumstances may align for us to have a mutual enemy again?" Salem didn't seem to have taken his reaction nearly as... violently... as Penn might have expected. "Who knows, perhaps Sunset Shimmer might even be able to convince you that I'm being 'reformed.'" Both of them had a laugh at that for a few seconds. "So that's it? Just for the mission and to clear the air?" Salem hummed with thought again, as if something in her glass had suddenly fascinated her. "You also particularly interest me. Not much, but I think your position of supernatural knowledge mitigated by your discomfort with power over others is a fascinating case. A man who could have untold power over others, who had his position thrust upon him by the multiverse, itself, and still resists it at every turn." Penn rubbed at his head. "It's not that complicated... I'm fallible, terribly so. I don't have the smarts or the guts to have power over others." "And yet you slip so easily into the role of 'Director Bakersfield' and instructing others to follow plans of YOUR design." Salem rested her chin in her hands, giving him a smug look. "It's no wonder you loathe Ozma and his dealings so. If there's one thing a mastermind can't stand, it's competition." "I don't like the headmaster because he'd rather involve children in his schemes than get on the front lines, himself." Penn let his voice drop to a low growl. "Kids trust blindly, they don't know enough to do anything else, and he takes advantage of that." When his words came out, he was surprised to hear it have gone even further down than he expected, with an extra growl to it. Guess there's at least ONE nice thing about being fused to a demon. Advantage on intimidation checks... "Is that really it?" Salem's smirk hadn't faded one iota. "Failed the intimidation check." Penn sighed as he went to dunk the next slice of bread in the custard, giving up on convincing Salem of anything. "Okay, maybe a little of both, but MOSTLY the second one." Salem took it as a victory, smirking wider while Penn set a saucepan on the stove and began measuring out more ingredients. "What's that going to be?" "Something for a later dish. It's going to need to chill for a while, so I'm prepping it now." Penn waved Isis's drone over, and the little robot flew across the room and landed on the counter with ease. "Temp probe, please. Just output a constant display on my phone." The little robot arched its neck until it had a clear line of sight into the saucepan. Penn set his phone down on the counter, watching the temperature already beginning to rise. With a nod to confirm that the setup would work, he began dumping in the first ingredient: sugar. "You're making candy?" "Yup. Butterscotch." "What recipe would require butterscotch?" "A secret weapon in case I need a certain someone's help." He took a moment to wink at the drone. "There's quite a few people around here with a real sweet tooth." Salem pondered the statement for a few seconds, and Penn's confession of his intended bribery had clearly done nothing to discourage her opinion of him. "So, how does one go about making candy?" Penn sighed again. She REALLY wasn't going to go away. "If I tell you, will you let me focus?" "Likely not." Penn resisted the urge to groan. So much for relaxing in the kitchen... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sunset leaned back, eyes still wide in surprise. "I... don't believe it. They're actually getting along." Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "That's surprising? You all came here together." "Yes, it IS!" Sunset was grinning from ear to ear. "When she went in there, I thought they were going to try to kill each other! It's a miracle!" When the music and dancing had stopped, Isis had cut most of the feeds to the other girls, but she'd kept Sunset's running. Sunset had made a quick excuse about letting Ruby catch Weiss up and Yang rest before hurrying out of the room. Initially she'd been rushing towards the kitchen with Rainbow hot on her heels, but once it was obvious that the pair were just going to talk, her pace had slowed to a crawl. "'Miracle,' huh?" Rainbow raised an eyebrow. "Sounds like there's a story, there." "A big one, yeah." Sunset chuckled. "Penn's better suited to tell it than I am." Rainbow sighed. There was another wall blocking her from hearing Sunset's story again. At this rate, she wasn't going to get to hear anything about what happened to Sunset in the last six months... unless... "So... how did you meet that guy, anyway?" "Well, I guess the best way to say it would be that we met over milkshakes." Sunset took a deep breath, then glanced back down at her phone. After one last confirmation that the two weren't going to kill each other, she shoved her phone back into her pocket. "After the portal exploded, I woke up in Texas." "You WHAT?" "Yeah, that was about my reaction, too." Sunset laughed. "I didn't know where I was, I didn't know what had happened, all I knew was that everything I knew was gone and it was hot. I started to freak out and shed a few tears before I got myself under control. Penn was just... out for a run, and I happened to be on his path." She shrugged. "I think it might have been fate. He saw I'd been crying and asked if I was okay. When he heard me say I was lost and alone, he took me to go grab milkshakes and we talked about what happened." Rainbow blinked. "That... that was it? He saw you crying and decided to drive you across the multiverse?" Sunset chuckled. "He might be a little reluctant at times, but he'd give you the shirt off his back if he thought you were in trouble, Dash... but we didn't really set off to drive across the multiverse until AFTER we teamed up with a group of super-spies to fight off an alien invasion." "You WHAT?" Sunset burst out laughing at Rainbow's outburst, shaking her head as she continued down the hallway, leaving Rainbow Dash standing alone, still dumbfounded. "YOU WHAT?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Today's the day, right?" "Affirmative." "Okay, then let's button up as much of this as we can, then we'll go give him my early Christmas present." "Are you certain that this is prudent?" "You think I'd be doing all of this if I wasn't already one hundred percent sure?" "You have a history of risk-taking." "Not on stuff like this and you know it." "Shall I execute the Snap Protocol, then?" "Affirmative." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Hmm... am I missing anything?" Sunset mused. "How would I know?" Rainbow countered, giving the whole setup a wary eye. Sunset had set out a pile of blue-sleeved cards face-down and was slowly drawing off of the top of the deck. She'd said something about bringing in one more of her new friends, but this didn't seem like it had anything to do with that. "Huh?" Sunset glanced up at her, as if just remembering she was there. "Oh, sorry, Dash. I wasn't talking to you." Rainbow looked around the room, her eyes narrowing. They'd gone to the school's sparring room together, but it was only the two of them. "But I'm the only person here?" Sunset chuckled at that, which made Rainbow ever-so-slightly nervous. "No, no, no. I was... I guess you could say I was just knocking." "Knocking on what?" "On a little birdhouse in my soul." Sunset looked down at the five cards in her hand and grinned. "Got it..." With a firm nod, she rose up out of her seat. "Okay, Rainbow! I need you to try to hit me." "What?" "Hit me!" Sunset rolled her eyes as if it was obvious, tapping her hand over her chest. "Come on, put one right here!" "Sunset, I'm not going to attack you!" The creaking of a door hinge caught their attention. "Ruby said I'd find you girls here!" Penn called. In his hands were a plate stacked high with French toast and a bowl full of what looked like candy. "You were gonna bring Missy back without me?" "No, you're right on time!" Sunset gave him a happy wave as he descended the stairs and stepped out onto the stage. As she reached for the treats he'd brought with him, Penn pulled them back out of reach. "Hey, these aren't for you! Your portions are back in the room you TOLD me you were going to be in!" Sunset chuckled and rubbed at the back of her head. "Oh, come on, buddy! I couldn't wait!" Penn rolled his eyes. "Well, she's not going to want to eat by herself, anyway, so we'll probably have to go back and get more from the kitchen, anyway. I'm pretty sure Ruby already ate what I left behind." With a smile he set the food on the nearby desk with the rest of the cards, then brushed off his hands. "So, what's the plan?" Sunset waved the cards towards him. "All set! Just need to summon Lantern to get it all started!" "Oh, is that all?" There was zero hesitation from Penn as he reeled back his fist, then turned to give Rainbow Dash a wink. "Wanna see something cool?" "What-" When Penn moved to punch Sunset in the jaw, Rainbow almost rushed forward to block it, but a pulse of chilly energy in the room and a translucent motion made her hesitate. Before her eyes, a figure materialized behind Sunset, reaching over her shoulder and catching the punch in a hand that looked more like a gnarled tree branch. The figure was dressed in a tattered robe and seemed to only have a lit Jack-O-Lantern for a head, capped by a wrinkled old pointed hat. Its grin somehow grew wider and it shook a chiding finger at Penn. Rainbow felt a chill run down her spine as she noticed a pair of glowing eyes and shiny white teeth inside the pumpkin, the creature's real face hidden away. "And now, since I've got Lantern... Specter, come on out!" Sunset, not at all fazed by what just happened, tossed another card up into the air. This one burst into a puff of smoke before what looked like a poofy bedsheet ghost appeared, sticking out a goofy-looking tongue and with eyes pointed in opposite directions. It was only just as it settled behind Sunset's other shoulder that Rainbow noticed a pair of fuzzy, definitely-not-human feet poking out from beneath its sheet. "And now comes the fun part!" Sunset took a moment to pat each monster on the head. "You guys ready?" The two both nodded. The ghost was the first one to dive headfirst into the floor, creating a swirling whirlpool of golden sparkles. The other one soon followed, adding a second layer of violet sparkles on top of the gold. The two tiny galaxies morphed and merged until some kind of reaction caused the whole thing to erupt with red light. "The overlay network's set!" Penn added, plucking a piece of candy from the bowl and unwrapping it. Before Rainbow could ask him to clarify what THAT meant, a new figure emerged upwards from the light. It was a figure dressed in ornate black armor... with no head... riding on top of a pale white horse with bloody-red eyes. "Hey, Dullahan!" Sunset gave a small wave. "Think you could get you-know-who for us?" Before the red light had even faded, the rider gave a salute (which was impressive given it had no head) and sunk back into the light. There was another surge of red, which faded and gave way to... nothing. "Huh... Think she's still asleep?" Penn mused. Sunset, despite all the impossible things that had just happened, still looked unfazed as she jutted her thumb up and over her shoulder towards the nearby table. "Wait for it." There was a rustle, barely audible to the ears, as a small hand reached up from the center of the bowl, pushing aside several of the candies before picking one up and starting to descend again. "Missyyyyyyy!" Sunset sang. "We seeeee yooouu!" The hand froze, now realizing it had been caught in the act. All at once, it pulled back down into the bowl, setting it rocking from side to side. Instead of lessening, though, the rocking only grew more and more intense, with the bowl shaking and shuffling, bouncing in place and threatening to roll off the edge at any second. Finally, Rainbow couldn't bear the wait any longer. She HAD to ask. "What-" Her voice seemed to be the trigger for the bowl to finally erupt. Candy flew in every direction in a fountain of sugar. Somehow, in the confusion, she didn't even see a figure appear. She was small, but still definitely MUCH too big to have come out of the bowl, dressed in a dress that looked like one of Rarity's Halloween designs and flapping a pair of black-and-white feathered wings. She had long, pink hair that looped up into something that looked like a fake halo and a smile that was only dimmed by the presence of several wrappers' worth of candy "I'M BAAACK!" She cheered, floating back down to eye level with everyone with a graceful spin. "I'm rested, refueled, and ready to roll! So, aside from Penn making his famous buttercream caramels without me, what did I miss?" She took a moment to try and give Penn an angry look, but her smile was impossible to drop, even as she unwrapped yet another piece of candy and tossed it in her mouth. Sunset was smiling as big as Rainbow had ever seen her as she gestured to the small girl. "Rainbow Dash, meet the Ghostrick Angel of Mischief-" "Call me Missy!" "Missy... meet Rainbow Dash!" The little angel's jaw dropped, and for a few seconds the two of them could only stare at one another, each one in their own type of shock. "What-" Rainbow tried to start again, only for Missy to cut her off with a pointing finger as she turned to Sunset. "That's Rainbow Dash? She's so OLD!" "MISSY!"