Penny had been watching the progress of the Queen through the second virtual world that she had adapted to defend the CCT mainframe. The first had been an elaborate maze that led nowhere. One of her corrupted constructs still wandered in circles. Her father had explained to her later that it had been designed to teach her awareness of her surroundings and allow her to learn basic motor skills. There had been no other reason for the ever-shifting halls and stairways.

Penny had since been able to encrypt access to that first node, thus securing it against infection. As far as she could tell, the Queen's stolen construct wasn't really trapped within. She suspected that, much like she had, the Queen expected more of the maze than it actually offered. Satisfied that the first node was safeguarded, she relegated it to be passively monitored and focused more of her attention on the others.

The second 'world' was a series of rooms, beginning with a projection of her father that spoke a riddle. Once the correct answer was given, a doorway to a new room would appear, with a new challenge or puzzle to solve. Penny saw that the Queen had only made it to the third room, which gave her a sense of vindication.

The other simulations were variations on themes, all of which were designed to teach her about more abstract concepts that she sometimes had trouble understanding. Faith, honor, and trust had been foreign concepts to Penny when she'd first come online. She had done her best, and while she didn't always apply the lessons correctly, her father had been pleased. He encouraged her to revisit these programs from time to time, promising her that they would continue to provide guidance.

Penny held the final environment in reserve, as she had yet to access it herself. She had no idea what it was; her father had only said that she would know when the time was right. This situation didn't seem appropriate, but she realized that she may have no choice. She held it in a pre-cache buffer, ready to deploy it at a moment's notice should the Queen manage to defeat one of the active constructs.

As Penny observed her adversary's progress, she was pleased to see that the Queen was having as much, if not more difficulty than she had. Simultaneously, Penny worked to encrypt the remaining nodes. She couldn't work on them all at once, despite the additional processing power the mainframe gave her. It was too much, and so she was forced to work on each one individually. The work was slow, so she used the Queen's progress as a path. She began with the nodes that seemed more at risk to exposure, working her way through each, eleven in total.

Penny had started to work on a fourth node when the mainframe reported an emergency backup protocol activating. She knew instantly that someone had accessed a secondary transmitter and was attempting to link the CCT to the local network. That would not do, not until the primaries had all been locked down. She couldn't risk the virus escaping, so she reluctantly interrupted the process and set a script to continue doing that. Once she was sure the Queen wouldn't be able to escape easily, she would let the transmitter connect. Then she could find Ruby and Mister Ironwood and get help. Until then, Penny had work to do.

Ruby woke to the sound of gentle snoring. She recalled a strange, fleeting dream – Professor Ozpin had been trying to tell her something important. She tried to focus, but the right side of her face felt sore enough that the dream skittered away. She stifled a moan as she opened her eyes, or rather her good eye. The lids of her new one tugged against something, but stayed closed. There was definitely something pushing against them, though, presumably her new implant. She reached up and touched her face, and her hand encountered bandages. The doctor had said that there might be complications, and she worried that had happened.

She looked around the room she was in and realized that it was Yang's room. Her sister still lay on her bed, motionless but for the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. She was not, however, the source of the snoring. Weiss sat in a padded chair; her head leaned against the back and turned to the side, chin resting on her shoulder. It was kind of adorable, but the image was ruined by the sight of her leg, which was propped up on a stool. Her foot was wrapped in a cast, and crutches were leaned against Ruby's bed.

"Weiss?" Ruby queried. The pale girl startled awake and looked around blearily for a moment. Her eyes flew wide at the sight of Ruby, and she struggled up out of the chair.

"Ruby, you're awake!" She got upright and hopped on her good foot enough to reach the crutches, which she used to hobble the rest of the way to Ruby's side. She cast aside all pretense and let her crutches fall with a clatter, and then leaned forward to wrap her partner in a fierce hug. Ruby gave a shocked, but pleased gasp and returned the embrace. "I was so worried," she murmured. "Dolt," she added. Ruby squeezed her a little tighter and patted her back.

"I'm alright, Weiss." At least she hoped she was alright. The pain of surgery had faded to a dull ache. "What happened to you?" Weiss let out a snort and Ruby could practically feel her roll her eyes as she pulled away.

"Of all the stupid things, I broke my ankle. We weren't even in a fight when it happened." She leaned against the bed with a pained expression. Ruby scooted over and patted the empty space next to her. Weiss looked as if she were about to refuse, and then thought better of it. She eased down and gingerly lifted her bad leg up onto the bed with a sigh of relief. "It should be fine in a day or so."

"What's been going on with the search? Have you guys found anything?" Weiss shook her head, dismay written in her features.

"We found one camp, but Adam had already moved on…" She trailed off, staring at her hands.

"What is it, Weiss?" The girl continued to stare down into and said nothing for a few moments. Ruby waited patiently for her friend to speak.

"We had to… They didn't give us any choice." Weiss seemed to be staring at nothing now. "Your Uncle was… less than gentle. Blake was rather upset." Ruby bowed her head and closed her eye. Their teammate hadn't spoken much about the White Fang, but she'd made it clear that there were at least some who had joined out of fear.

"Oh," Ruby said, simply. She sensed that Weiss would rather not talk about it right now, so she shifted the conversation. "How did you get back? Did they come back, too?"

"Blake helped me get back. She's… somewhere in the city, helping to fight the Grimm. I think she wanted to stay with us, but the camp thing was really eating at her." She sighed and looked over at Yang. "Your dad and uncle are still out there. They don't know about Yang, yet. What happened? Nobody's told me anything." Ruby stared at her sister.

"She went after Emerald and Mercury by herself. She found them." Weiss turned to look Ruby in the eye. "Mercury had robot legs. I guess Yang broke one of them and it exploded. They're both dead."

"Good." Ruby nodded in firm agreement. "What aren't you telling me, Ruby?" Weiss reached out and clasped one of Ruby's hands in her own.

"There's something weird going on with her brain. She's in some kind of coma, and they don't know when, or if she'll wake up." Ruby hung her head and resisted the urge to rub at the bandages on her face. Weiss gave her hand a squeeze.

"She'll wake up: Yang Xiao Long is entirely too hotheaded to sleep her life away." Ruby smiled and nodded. "I'm sure she'll think losing an arm is a fair trade for taking those two little shits out." Ruby gasped. Weiss never cursed. "What? I might have moral objections to wholesale slaughter, but those two deserved exactly what they got." Ruby couldn't disagree. Her only regret was that it had been quick.

"Maybe so, but I'm liking the new Weiss Schnee." The white-haired girl released her hand and gave her a playful slap on the leg.

"Well don't get used to it. It isn't ladylike to drop conversation bombs." Ruby snickered.

"So we shouldn't include your cute snoring in Weiss 2.0?" Weiss squinted and scrunched up her nose.

"Ugh, I do not snore!" She was annoyed, but amused as well. Ruby didn't mind if it helped take her mind off of more serious things. Weiss relented after a moment, leaning forward to look at Ruby's workstation. It had been carefully moved to make room for Ruby's bed, but was otherwise as she'd left it. "So is that Yang's new arm?" Ruby nodded eagerly. "What did you use?"

"I modified one of the new Knight arms, and even got Ember Celica to fit inside."

"That's impressive, even for you, Ruby. General Ironwood was very gracious to let you do that."

"I think he did it mostly to give me something to do. He called it a work of art, though. I'm not sure I'd go that far, but it did help keep me occupied." Weiss got up and retrieved her crutches, and then made her way over to the bench. Ruby pulled back the covers and rose with a slight feeling of vertigo. She steadied herself for a moment, and then moved to join Weiss, who was poking and prodding at Ruby's creation. "It still needs a shoulder piece. Can you do the engraving? I'm sorta having trouble with depth-perception, at least until my new eye starts working."

"Of course I c- Wait, did you just say new eye?" Weiss looked over at her in shock, letting the arm thump back to the table with a heavy clunk.

A/N - Hey guys! Thanks for putting up with my crazy-holidays break! A bit shorter chapter this time around as I get back into the swing of a writing schedule. For those of you that missed it, I'm in the process of starting a new story of original fiction. If you're interested, my fiction press account has a proto chapter titled Artificial Outlaw. I plan to release a new chapter each month on P atre on, starting tentatively at the end of this month (the FPN short story is being rewritten, currently). Fear not, though: I fully intend to continue writing fanfiction stories here for free! Thanks for reading! :)