• Published 31st Aug 2018
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SAPR - Scipio Smith



Sunset, Jaune, Pyrrha and Ruby are Team SAPR, and together they fight to defeat the malice of Salem, uncover the truth about Ruby's past and fill the emptiness within their souls.

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The Soul of the Weapon (New)

The Soul of the Weapon

The Skyray sat on the docking pad was a little different than the others; in place of grey metal, it was painted in a bright cyan, and it had Rainbow Dash’s symbol – the rainbow coloured lightning bolt emerging from a cloud – daubed upon the nose, alongside the words ‘The Bus’ painted in magenta. In addition to the heavy, eight-barrelled rotary cannon mounted under the nose and the missile pods concealed on either side of the nose that were standard to all the Skyrays Ruby had yet come across, this particular Skyray had a pair of triple-barrelled guns mounted on the wing-tips just beside the engines, while miniature missile pods also hung suspended on either side of the craft.

Rainbow Dash beamed with pride as she and Ruby walked down to the path towards the waiting airship. “Check it out,” she declared. “Isn’t she awesome?”

“Nice,” Ruby cooed appreciatively. “Did you do all the upgrades yourself?”

“Twilight planned them out, and all of my friends chipped in to help,” Rainbow replied. “She’s got extra cannons on the wings, Firefly missiles that can take out anything smaller than an ursa major, and the engines have been given a boost too.”

“So you can carry the extra weight?” Ruby asked.

“Well, there’s that, but also just so that she can go faster,” replied Rainbow.

Ruby grinned. “A custom airship, a jetpack; you must really like to fly, huh?”

Rainbow tucked her hands behind her head. “There’s nothing quite like being up in the air,” she declared. “I mean, I could come up with good reasons why it’s good to have a jetpack, like I can get to the fight quicker, or in the airship, I can take out some of the enemy before I get on the ground, but the truth is… the truth is that there’s nothing as thrilling as flying. When you get up into the sky, anything is possible, you know?”

“Not really,” Ruby admitted. “But I guess that I don’t need to understand that, so long as I know how you feel. And it is a sweet airship. And that jetpack is pretty cool too.”

“I usually call it a wingpack, but yeah, it is cool,” Rainbow said. “I can’t take credit for that one at all, though; Twilight worked on the Wings of Harmony all by herself.”

“Really?” Ruby asked, unable to keep a touch of disappointment out of her voice.

Rainbow glanced at her out of the side of her magenta eyes. “Let me guess,” she said. “You’re one of those who thinks that huntsmen and huntresses ought to make their own weapons.”

“Well, yeah,” Ruby said. “I mean, how else are you going to get a piece of your soul into it?”

“What if it doesn’t have to be your soul?” Rainbow asked in response.

“How do you mean?”

Their footsteps crunched along the path as Rainbow took a moment to reply. “My friend Applejack uses a lever rifle called One in a Thousand,” she said. “It belonged to her pa, before… well, you can guess. She didn’t make it, and her dad didn’t even make it either; it was a special model made by the manufacturer, and her grandpa won it in a shooting contest. It doesn’t have Applejack’s soul in it, from when she was putting all of the pieces together, but it’s got her pa’s sweat on it, and her grandpa’s too, so I kinda think that it’s got the soul of her family in there somewhere, and… maybe that’s enough. And it’s the same with Wings of Harmony; I didn’t make it, but my best friend did, and if it doesn’t have my soul in it, then it has hers: my guardian angel, keeping me company.”

Now it was Ruby’s turn to be silent for a moment. “That’s… sweet,” she allowed, “but not very practical, don’t you think?”

“'Practical'?” Rainbow repeated. “What’s practical about the idea that we need to put our souls in our weapons?”

“Because if we don’t, then how can they channel our aura properly?” Ruby demanded. “That’s why we do it, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know; I didn’t make any of my weapons. I thought it was a… a poetic thing.”

“Well, it is that too, I guess, at least a little,” Ruby conceded. “But it’s a practical thing, too.” She paused. “So why is it that you use regular guns instead of having, you know, a personal weapon? I know that it’s not an Atlas thing, because Sunset put her own weapon together.”

“And she also has an old sword that Pyrrha’s mother gave her; she hasn’t got her soul in that,” Rainbow pointed out.

“That’s also the weapon she’s worst with,” Ruby replied. “Just saying.”

Rainbow snorted. “Okay, sure, you’ve got a point there. As for me… all my weapons were gifts.”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh,” Rainbow said, reaching into the holster on her right hip and pulling out Plain Awesome. “Look at this.”

Ruby took the weapon from Rainbow’s unprotesting hands. It didn’t look particularly special at first; it was clearly a well-made gun, and the fact that it was shiny and metallic rather than looking a little plasticy like so many Atlesian weapons was a little unusual, but nothing too out of the ordinary, nothing like Crescent Rose or Miló or any of the other bizarre and complex weapons that she saw every day at Beacon Academy. It was only when she looked closer that Ruby realised that the black grip of the pistol was made of ebony. And as she looked closer still, she could see that on the metal of the side of the frame was engraved the words ‘With Gratitude, C, 21 April 2118’.

“'C'?” Ruby asked, looking back up at Rainbow Dash.

"Cadance," Rainbow said. "Councillor Cadenza, that is."

Ruby had heard the name before; Sunset had mentioned it, a while back, when explaining why Rainbow hated Blake; gods, that all seemed like such a long time ago, didn't it? "She's the one… the White Fang, they tried to-"

"Kidnap her, yeah," Rainbow said shortly, an edge in her voice that suggested that she didn't really want to talk about it. She held out her hand, and Ruby mutely pressed the gun into her palm. Rainbow holstered it. "I don't know really know what I did that day to deserve it – Cadance said it was so I could protect Atlas like I'd protected her, but the truth is, I… never mind – the point is Cadance gave me these MPs; top of the line models, but they're still for sale to anyone who can afford them."

Ruby nodded. "And the shotgun?"

"That was a graduation from combat school present from General Ironwood," Rainbow said, a grin springing to her face and banishing her earlier melancholy. "Which is funny because he hates shotguns and thinks I'm an idiot for using one." She paused. "I mean, I am an idiot, but not because of that, I don't think."

"I dunno; I'm not too sold on shotguns either," Ruby remarked.

"Doesn't your sister have one strapped to each hand?"

"Yeah, and I wish she'd put something with a little more range in Ember Celica," Ruby declared. "She can't hit a thing except up close, and I get that's how she fights; it's just… I'd kind of like her to be able to start thinning out the herd from a little further away, you know?"

"Oh, I know," Rainbow replied. "You have no idea how many times the General tried to persuade me to take a rifle instead. A shotgun doesn't exactly fit in the wall of guns."

"But you like it anyway," Ruby said.

"I'm not always going to be in the wall of guns," Rainbow declared. "Yes, Atlesian huntsmen more often operate with combined arms support than other huntsmen, but there are still times when we have to go into some pretty tight-quarter places by ourselves, and I like to have something handy for close encounters."

"Yang probably feels the same way," Ruby admitted. "Or she's just decided that she'd rather let everyone get close so that she can punch them and shoot them at the same time."

Rainbow chuckled. "Hey, Ruby," she said, "thanks for doing this."

"No problem," Ruby said. "Although I don't know if I'll actually be able to help at all. I know my way around weapons, but it's not like I'm an engineer or anything."

"Maybe knowing your way around weapons is what we need," Rainbow said lightly, "and don't worry about getting results; just the fact that you're giving it a shot means a lot."

They were very close to the waiting Skyray now, and the side door facing the school and the path – facing the direction from which Ruby and Rainbow Dash had just come – slid open.

"Ruby!" Penny cried enthusiastically as she stood in the doorway, and she looked as though she would have leapt out of the Skyray, beyond the bounds of the extending ramp, and towards Ruby if Ciel had not had a restraining hand upon her shoulder.

"Penny," she admonished. "Remember: self control."

Penny pouted momentarily, before she curtsied and spoke again in an affectedly polished voice. "It is very good to see you again, Ruby; how are you?"

Ruby sniggered as she climbed the ramp that had just finished extending from out of the airship. She mockingly returned Penny's curtsy with one of her own. "I am in tip top condition, Penny; how are you today?"

"Fantastic!" Penny cried, grabbing Ruby by the shoulders and pulling her into a bear hug. "Thank you so much for agreeing to help Twilight work on my weapons! I know that I'm in great hands with you two working together."

"Glad I could help," Ruby croaked.

"Penny," Ciel warned.

Penny gasped and dropped Ruby who hit the metal of the ramp with a soft thud. "Sorry!" she cried; to Ruby or Ciel or both, it was not entirely clear.

Rainbow grinned as she took Ruby by the arm and helped her up. "Let us in, Penny, and we can get going."

Penny shuffled back apologetically out of the doorway, allowing space for Rainbow and Ruby to get up into the airship. Inside, the Skyray looked no different than the airship that they had flown back to Beacon on after Adam had stolen their railway engine: grey and functional and with kind of narrow seating just between the doors and the cockpit.

Twilight was sat on one of those benches, and she smiled as Ruby climbed aboard. "Hey, Ruby," she said. "Thanks for agreeing to come and do this."

Ruby smiled nervously. "I don't know if I'll actually be able to do anything, but I'm happy to try and help."

"That is all that is required to earn our thanks," Ciel declared, walking across the cabin as the door slid shut and taking the seat next to Twilight.

Ruby sat down on the bench opposite, while Rainbow walked past them all and into the cockpit, disappearing from Ruby's view. Her voice, however, still carried into the main compartment. "Control, this is Rorari Three-Two requesting permission to take off."

"Rorari Three-Two, this is Beacon control; you are cleared to ascend."

"Copy that," Rainbow replied, and at once, the Skyray began to rise; the view from out of the small windows in the side doors didn't change – it was sky before, and it was still sky – but Ruby could feel the airship going up nonetheless, just as she could feel it turning in place before it began to fly in the direction of the Valiant; as it had been explained to her, there was nowhere at Beacon were they could work on Penny and be sure that her secret wouldn't be exposed in the process, so they were heading to the Atlesian flagship for the day where access could be more tightly regulated.

That was probably why Ciel and Rainbow were both wearing their Atlas uniforms.

Penny took the free seat next to Ruby. "When we're done, Rainbow's going to speak to Professor Goodwitch to see if I can join Pyrrha and Yang in their special sparring sessions!" she declared excitedly. "I can hardly wait!"

"Really?" Ruby asked. "That sounds like a great idea, Penny."

"I'm a little surprised that you're not invited," Penny added.

"I'm not the best at sparring," Ruby admitted, a tad shamefacedly. She had built Crescent Rose in order to fight grimm, and her baby was good at it too, but it was a little too big for fighting people, and they had a habit of getting in her guard and taking her out. As a result, she was near the top of the class in the practical sections of Grimm Studies but only average in Combat. "Certainly not in the same league as Pyrrha or Yang."

"I don't know if I'm in their league either, since Professor Goodwitch won't let me fight against Pyrrha," Penny said, with ill-concealed disappointment.

"Sulkiness is very unbecoming, Penny," Ciel murmured. "Your time will come."

"When?" Penny demanded. "And how long do I have to wait for other people to decide that I'm ready?"

"Look at it like this, Penny," Twilight said. "If you and Pyrrha fought now, where all the rest of the year could see you, then there'd be nothing left to wow people with at the Vytal Festival."

Penny gasped. "You really think that I've got what it takes to wow people?"

"I helped build you, Penny; I know you've got what it takes," Twilight said.

Ruby's eyes widened. "You helped make Penny?"

"Yep," Twilight said, without undue modesty. "Doctor Polendina only took on two lab assistants to help him with Penny, and I was one of them."

"Wow," Ruby murmured. "Then what do you need my help for?"

"I'm told you're an expert with weapons."

"And you made a person!" Ruby cried, gesturing at Penny. "What can I possibly know that you don't?"

"That remains to be seen," Ciel said, without malice.

"I'm not going to pretend to know everything," Twilight said. "And as strange as it may seem, coming from an Atlas scientist, weapons aren't my specialty. And don't sell yourself short either; I've never seen anything that quite compares to Crescent Rose in the way you're able to compact it. Which is why I'm hopeful that you'll see something I can't."

"We're all counting on you, Ruby!" Penny declared.

Ruby laughed nervously. "Aha, well-"

"Penny, I don't think that actually reinforced her confidence," Ciel observed. The corners of her lips twitched upwards.

Rainbow Dash guided the Skyray through the air from Beacon to the Valiant, the majestic ship that hung over Vale, a stationary point at the centre of the otherwise fluid and always-moving Atlesian formation. Smaller airships darted about it like flies, but the Valiant was still and permanent-seeming, a fixed addition to the Valish sky. As she climbed into the cockpit beside Rainbow, Ruby wondered if there would come a point at which it would look as strange to not see the Atlesian airships in the sky as it had done to see them there when they first arrived.

She hoped not; not because she had any great objection to the Atlesian presence, but because if that happened, it meant that their friends from the north had stayed much too long.

It meant that things in Vale had stayed dangerous for much too long.

"Torchwick's aboard that ship, isn't he?" Ruby asked as Rainbow flew them in towards the Valiant's open docking bay, the open hatch gaping like the mouth of a great beast to swallow them up.

"Yep," Rainbow muttered. "Snug, secure, and silent."

"Silent," Ruby growled. "So he hasn't talked yet? About anything?"

"I don't know for sure, but I haven't heard anything," Rainbow replied. "Blake hasn't told me that she's heard anything; has she said anything to you?"

"No," Ruby said. "There must be some way to make him talk!"

Rainbow frowned. "There are rules against that kind of thing, even if we can't understand why."

The airship flew into the docking bay and set down there amidst the other airships – Skygraspers and Skyrays for the most part – parked and waiting on the pristinely polished steel floor. The hangar door slammed shut behind them, but the deck was so well-lit that it didn't appear to get even a little darker from blotting out the sun. As the side door opened to let them out, Ruby could see that everything – every airship and piece of equipment – had been cleaned to within an inch of its life, and the uniforms of the deck crew looked as though they had been laundered this morning. Personnel moved this way and that under the supervision of a muscular deck chief, gesturing with both hands as he bellowed out commands. Guards in face-concealing helmets stood erect around the edges of the hangar, their rifles held across their chests.

No one was slovenly, not a man was ill-turned out. A sense of pride radiated from every piece of decking, every ceiling tile, every man and woman here; this was the flagship, and they all knew it, and they all wanted visitors like Ruby to know it too.

Twilight took the lead, and they followed her through the pristine corridors of the Valiant, showing her scroll to the guards stationed at intervals – it must have had her clearance on it – until she had brought them to a white, windowless room with a large table set in the centre of it and various smaller tables around the walls. Tools of all descriptions lay on most of the tables, but others amongst them were bare, gleaming expectantly as they waited for something to occupy them.

There were no chairs. Rainbow Dash made her way to the back of the room and lounged there, leaning against metallic panels; Ciel stood near the door, her back ramrod straight and her hands clasped behind her back.

Penny hopped up onto the large empty table in the centre of the table in the centre of the room.

“Shall we start now?” she asked, looking at Twilight more than Penny.

“Uh, sure,” Ruby replied. “Um… how are we going to do this?”

Twilight ignored her, speaking to Penny in a gentle voice. “Penny, we’re going to put you on standby mode for a little while, okay?”

“Okay,” Penny said quietly. “Will I dream?”

Twilight smiled. “You tell me when you wake up,” she said. She crossed the room, taking off her spectacles in a fluid motion as she leaned forwards to look into Penny’s eyes, their heads so close that their foreheads almost touched. “Do you consent for me to access your command pathways?”

Penny’s voice was unwavering. “My name is Penny Polendina, and I consent.”

Twilight was silent for a moment. “Authentication key alpha-one-seven-tango-eight-sierra-two-six. Access root command pathways. Directory: status. Command: stand by.”

Penny sat still, frozen in place where she sat upon the table; her eyelids swept down half-closed, and in the parts of her eyes that were yet visible, the light dimmed to almost nothing.

Ruby stared. “Did you… did you just turn her off?”

“No, I just put her into standby, so that we can open her up without her feeling it,” Twilight replied.

“Is there a difference?”

“She’s not deactivated,” Twilight explained. She started to manhandle Penny, or trying to. “Rainbow, do you mind-?”

“Sure thing,” Rainbow said, getting up from off the wall and briskly crossing the space separating her and Penny. With Rainbow’s help, Twilight succeeded in laying Penny, who did not move to help or hinder them in any way, flat on her chest, face down upon the table.

Ruby frowned. Seeing Penny like this… it felt wrong. It felt absolutely and completely wrong. It made Penny out to be just the machine that she was afraid she was, like she’d confessed to being on the train.

“If you ever doubt that you’re different from the other robots again, just remember that: you can make your own choices; you don’t have to do just what you’re told.”

But that wasn’t true, was it?

“What if she said no?” Ruby demanded.

Twilight looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean just then, before, when you asked if she consented,” Ruby said. “Did she need to say yes to that, or is it just to make her feel better?”

“I would never initiate command functions without Penny’s consent.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Ruby said coldly.

Twilight hesitated. “Yes,” she said softly. “Penny needs to consent in order for me to access her command pathways.”

That… that made it a little better. And Ruby supposed that Penny hadn’t seemed too upset about what was… what was being done to her. All the same, it made her shiver a little bit. “It’s not right,” she murmured. “Penny’s a person; you shouldn’t be able to just turn her off.”

“Put her on standby,” Twilight corrected.

“You say that like it’s a huge difference.”

“It is a huge difference,” Twilight insisted. “If Penny… if Penny were ever deactivated-”

“Twilight,” Ciel reproached.

“Ruby’s been cleared, or she wouldn’t be here,” Twilight replied. She put her glasses back on. “If Penny is ever deactivated, then she cannot be reactivated, not without a new… stimulus of aura.”

Ruby frowned. “'Stimulus'? What do you mean? Penny generates her own aura.”

“Not exactly,” Twilight murmured. “Although we in Atlas have been studying aura from a scientific standpoint in recent years, seeking to decouple the truth from the crudescence of mysticism that has grown up around it, we still don’t know how to create aura sui generis, or even if it’s possible to do such a thing. What we have been able to do, what we have learned is possible… is to split the aura of a living soul, to… cut off, for want of a better word, a part of someone’s existing aura and… transfer it to another subject. Or a host.”

Ruby’s eyes widened. “So… Penny’s aura was-”

“Her father,” Twilight said. “He… brought her to life, like any parent does.”

Ruby’s head was spinning. Penny’s aura was really a part of her father’s aura? What did that even mean? “So… can he still-”

“No,” Twilight said. “The aura that he sacrificed belongs to Penny now; it’s bound to her, it belongs to her, it’s even changed colour; to all intents and purposes, it is her aura. It’s even expanded, becoming stronger than the amount that was initially bestowed upon her. So long as Penny is active in some form, then she can sustain that aura… but, if she were ever to be completely deactivated, the light of her aura would go out, and we wouldn’t be able to get it back.” She smiled. “So, as you can see, it’s a pretty big difference between turning Penny off and putting her on standby. She’s still on; she’s just… not here right now. Which means that we can work on her without her feeling it.”

Ruby hesitated. Giving up a piece of your aura? Splitting your aura? She’d never heard of anything like that before. She’d never imagined anything like that before; it was… it was kind of a terrible prospect. Aura was a part of yourself, the mirror of your soul; it was bound up with who you were and what you were; it was tied to your semblance, which also reflected what you were. To sever all of that? To take some kind of science-knife and cut a piece of it off? It was… it made her shiver a little just to think about it.

But, at the same time, to do something like that voluntarily? To give up a piece of your soul to bring someone else to life, that was… that was all kinds of sweet too.

“He must love her very much,” Ruby murmured.

“Hmm?” Ciel said.

“Penny’s father,” Ruby explained.

Ciel nodded. “Indeed.” She paused. “It is a great miracle that Doctor Polendina has wrought, an achievement on par with that of the gods. He is to be commended for it and praised for his…”

“His what?” Ruby asked.

“It does not matter,” Ciel said. “I misspoke.”

Ruby doubted that Ciel had ever misspoke in her life, but she was prevented from saying anything more when Rainbow said, “On par with the gods? Isn’t that blasphemy or something?”

Her tone was playful, teasing, but Ciel’s tone was utterly sincere as she replied, “'As the gods gave life to the dust, so too does the mother give life to the child, so do I say unto thee, men of the north, that the gods walk amongst thee in the forms of thy mothers! O, worship them, revere them, serve them, for they are thy creators, and are owed so much at least.'”

“Who said that?” Ruby asked.

“The Lady of the North,” Ciel replied. “In her second epistle to the Mantleites. She goes on, of course, to say that women have a duty to become the gods of the future by bearing children, but that is less relevant to the subject at hand. The point being that there is nothing blasphemous about comparing the act of creation to godhood; it is an image employed by the Lady herself.”

“Ruby,” Twilight said softly. “I understand that this isn’t what you were intending to see or find out when you came here, so if it makes you uncomfortable, then you don’t have to stay. Rainbow can fly you back to Beacon.”

Ruby hesitated for a moment, looking at Penny lying there on the table, like… but she was going to be lying there no matter what Ruby did.

At least, if she stayed, she might be able to help.

“It’s okay,” Ruby said, at length. “I’ll stay, if that’s okay with you.”

Twilight smiled. “Glad to have you aboard, Ruby.”

Twilight proceeded to dismantle Penny’s Floating Array before Ruby’s eyes, removing the swords from Penny’s back before proceeding to open up the quillon block to reveal the gravity dust engines that kept the blades afloat, the thrusters that gave them direction, and the power pack for the built-in laser.

“And want to make all of this stuff even smaller?” Ruby asked as she regarded the component parts. The anti-gravity system was small enough to fit into the palm of her hand, small enough in fact that she could close her palm around it and feel the heat against her skin. The power pack for the laser had been flexibly designed, curling around the edge of the round quillon block like a serpent coiled around a rock, and a green glow arose from the space between the individual coils of black plastic. The thrusters were about the size of Ruby’s pinky fingers, and she had already noticed that you didn’t see them in action when you watched Penny direct her swords like puppets.

“It’s a tall order, I know,” Twilight sighed. “But we just don’t have enough space for everything that we would like to cram in here.”

“A wireless receiver?”

“Yes, and a more powerful battery,” Twilight explained. “At the moment, Penny’s own core supplies power to activate the gravity dust and the thrusters, only the lasers - which have a much greater consumption - have their own internal power system. If Penny’s swords were wireless-”

“Then you’d need room for a power system,” Ruby acknowledged. “But you’d save space internally because Penny wouldn’t need such a powerful core, right?”

“Theoretically, perhaps,” Twilight agreed. “But I’m not sure that anyone would agree to intentionally powering down Penny in any way; she was always designed with her current power levels in mind, so the fact that she’s having to provide power to Floating Array actually makes her a little weaker than she should be.”

Ruby thought back to Penny’s bone-crushing hugs. “She’s supposed to be stronger?” She folded her arms. “What does she need to be stronger for? She fights from a distance!”

“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” Rainbow said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ruby demanded.

“It means that we’ve all watched you swinging that oversized scythe around, it’s clear that you don’t have a clue what to do when the enemy gets up close,” Rainbow replied. “It’s the biggest thing holding you back from being a first rate huntress.”

Ruby’s mouth twisted in distaste. “You sound like Yang,” she muttered.

“You should listen to her, then, she knows what she’s talking about,” Rainbow said. “The point is, Penny could stand to learn how to throw a punch just in case.”

“Then why don’t you teach her?” Ruby asked.

Rainbow was silent for a moment. “Penny, uh… Penny’s father… he doesn’t like me very much.”

Ruby blinked. “Really?”

“Really,” Rainbow confirmed. “He thinks I’m a knucklehead. Which, okay, he’s right, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about. The point is, he didn’t want me to be Penny’s team leader, he wasn’t afraid to let me know that he didn’t want me as Penny’s team leader, I only have the job because the General pays the bills and I’m not allowed to train Penny. The doc is afraid I’ll… I don’t know what he’s afraid of, what does he think I’m going to her, Twilight?”

“He… Doctor Polendina is afraid you’ll get too rough with her,” Twilight murmured.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Ciel is the one the doc approves of, isn’t that right?”

“It appears that the good doctor finds my manner reassuring,” Ciel murmured.

“Anyway,” Twilight said, “leaving all of that aside for a moment, even if we were to install a smaller, less powerful power core inside Penny, with the position of the core relative to Floating Array I’m not sure how much difference it would make.”

Ruby nodded. That made sense. “Then the answer is obvious,” she said. “Penny needs smaller swords.”

“They already fold in half,” Twilight pointed out.

“And unfolded they’re nearly as tall as Penny is,” Ruby replied. “Why do they need to be so large, and so thick? Penny isn’t using them like normal swords so she doesn’t need greater reach, and they fold up for the laser so it can’t be that. If the blade was cut down to about the length that they are when they’re firing as lasers, then-”

“Then no space would be saved because that is the length that they fold down to,” Ciel pointed out.

“Not if they folded in half when cut down to half-size,” Ruby insisted. “You’d have all that space to play with to put all of the other stuff in there.”

“And a really short sword,” Rainbow said.

“Penny doesn’t really fight with swords,” Ruby declared. “You shouldn’t be thinking of them that way; with how Penny uses them they’re more like… throwing knives. Nobody throws a full size sword-”

“But apparently somebody does wave them around in the air to whack people from the other end of the stage,” Rainbow reminded her.

“Okay, yes, Sunset,” Ruby admitted. “But that’s different-”

“How?” Ciel asked. “It seems to be, not that I expect her to ever admit it, but Sunset Shimmer’s recent performance may have been inspired in part by watching Penny in action.”

“But Sunset could have done that with a knife,” Ruby insisted.

“I’m not so sure,” Rainbow said. “I get what you’re saying, but I still think you need the reach of a sword sometimes; you can’t cut someone’s legs out from under them with a knife.”

“Anything that we come up with here will need to be approved by Doctor Polendina and General Ironwood,” Twilight reminded Rainbow and informed Ruby. “So there’s no harm in putting the idea down and submitting it. Incidentally, Ruby, I hope you wouldn’t mind coming to help me present your suggestions if it comes to that?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Rainbow asked.

“If the idea comes from Ruby then there’s no reason she shouldn’t get the credit,” Twilight said. “And she’ll be best placed to make the case since she came up with the concept.”

“Okay, but how likely is Doctor Polendina to agree that a fifteen year old had a better idea than he did?” Rainbow demanded.

“Doctor Polendina will recognise Ruby’s intelligence, and respond to it,” Twilight insisted. “You don’t mind, do you, Ruby?”

“I, uh,” Ruby murmured, unsure if she really wanted to go up in front of General Ironwood and Penny’s rather stern-seeming father and talk to them about anything, even a subject she was passionate about. She’d never really met General Ironwood, but the one time that she’d been in his presence he seemed very strict and straight to business. And Penny’s father… “I don’t know.”

Twilight smiled encouragingly at her. “It’s okay, you’ve got time to think about it. So: a knife with a long handle, do you think?”

“That’s one idea,” Ruby said. “If Penny really needs to have a sword then could you not build some more of the components into the blade itself? There’s enough space with how thick the blades are.”

Twilight was silent for a moment. “You are incredible, Ruby Rose.”

Ruby laughed nervously, looking away as she scratched the back of her head. “Uh, thanks?”

“Come here, sit down,” Twilight said, striding over to one of the tables lining the walls, one that was laden with paper and pencils. Twilight’s hand glowed lavender as she pushed a stool out from under the desk, then drew out another for herself. “Do you think that you’re up to helping me with some blueprints? No, not helping, do you think you can draw what you have in mind?”

“Sure,” Ruby said. She’d had to blueprint Crescent Rose and get it approved by a teacher at Signal before she was allowed to actually start making it - and not Dad or Uncle Qrow, either; she’d had to convince someone who wasn’t family - so it was nothing new to her. In fact, as she sat down beside Twilight and got to work, it soon started to feel just like old times.

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