Ashborn clapped his hands with a grin "Putting aside my hiring plans, I'm more interested in lunch. Anyone interested in getting something from Vale or should we head to the cafeteria?"
Ruby perked up immediately. "Let's go to Vale!"
Ashborn nodded, and with a smooth motion, his shadow expanded like ink spilling across the ground. In the blink of an eye, the entire group found themselves in the heart of Vale.
Confusion instantly flooded their faces.
Ruby blinked rapidly. "You can do that for multiple people?!"
Ashborn gave a graceful performance bow. "Of course. Now then, lead the way."
Ruby recovered quickly, smiling.
"We're actually close by," she said, then began walking with the rest of the group following.
Yang, however, called out angrily, "You can't possibly drag me like this!"
Everyone stopped and turned. Behind Ashborn floated a rigid, frozen Yang, completely still, hovering like a statue. It seemed most of them had forgotten she was still immobilized.
Ashborn glanced back at her. "I can't have you free. You're a punch-risk."
Yang growled, "One day, I'll punch the shit out of your smug face."
Ashborn shook his head slowly. "Consider this a training exercise, for your temper. If you stay like this, it will lead you to bad places."
Yang snapped back, "The only bad place is where you are."
Ashborn's expression turned thoughtful, even serious. "Not really. If you remain like this, you'll lose your arm by your friend's red-haired obsessive ex-boyfriend's katana. Then you'll become depressed, traumatized, constantly dreaming about the night you lost it. Part of you will change… you'll fear men, you'll withdraw, and possibly end up alone."
Silence followed his words like a heavy cloud.
Ruby's voice came out weak and uncertain. "That's… oddly specific. Again."
Ashborn simply smiled. "It is just a possibility, but I advise you to keep my words in mind," he said, and with a casual gesture of his hand, he released Yang from her frozen state.
He turned to Ruby with renewed cheer. "Now, let's go!"
Ruby forced a smile.
"Oh…yes!" she said, but even as she started walking again, she couldn't shake the disturbing image Ashborn had painted.
Penny, walking beside Amazo, leaned toward him and whispered, "What was that about?"
Amazo shrugged. "Father knows stuff no one knows, past, present and even future. And I have yet to see him make a mistake."
Penny nodded slowly, but Amazo's calm confidence only served to spook the rest of the group.
Especially Yang, who subconsciously reached to touch her arm and Blake, who had turned noticeably pale.
[red-haired obsessive ex-boyfriend…] Blake thought, a chill running down her spine. That could only apply to one person… right?
___________
The group headed to a nearby pizza shop in Vale. The moment food was served, all thoughts of Ashborn's grim prediction vanished. Laughter and chatter filled the table as everyone enjoyed their meal, everyone except Penny, who sat quietly, watching the others eat with her hands folded neatly in front of her.
Ashborn, observing her, had a thoughtful look on his face.
"Amazo," he said casually, "are you able to make Penny taste food… like you?"
Amazo paused mid-bite and tilted his head in thought.
"It's possible," he said after a moment. "Though it would be a complex process to adjust her body."
The group paused, exchanging confused glances.
Ashborn pointed at Penny.
"Penny is also a sentient android," he explained. "Though her functionality is different. She's not capable of evolution like Amazo, but she is learning human norms."
Stunned silence fell across the table.
Penny's eyes widened in panic.
"That's supposed to be a secret!" she exclaimed.
Ashborn waved a hand dismissively. "Next to you is an android capable of causing disasters. No one is really going to mind your existence, and besides… don't you want to be able to taste food?"
Penny looked down at the pizza in front of her. Her expression shifted from panic to quiet curiosity, eyes lingering on the slices she could never experience.
Ashborn grinned and looked at Amazo. "Rules are made to be broken."
Amazo blinked once, then nodded. Without saying anything else, he reached out and placed a hand on Penny's shoulder. In an instant, silver-like liquid began spreading across her body like living mercury.
Penny gasped. "What is this?!"
She tried to move, but her body refused to respond. The others leaned forward, watching with a mix of confusion and fascination. After a tense minute, the silver liquid receded back into Amazo's body, leaving Penny seemingly unchanged but clearly bewildered.
"I modified your body to be able to taste food," Amazo said calmly. "Try eating something."
Penny looked at him, then down at the food. Slowly, she picked up a slice of pizza and took a bite.
She blinked… then tears welled in her eyes. "It's… amazing."
Everyone stared in stunned amazement.
Blake, her voice hushed with disbelief, asked "You're an android… but you can cry?"
Penny, still processing everything, touched the tears running down her cheeks "How? I shouldn't be able to cry…"
"I took the liberty of adding a few other features," Amazo said. "Like tear ducts, and enhanced ability to experience human sensations such as touch and warmth."
Penny blinked, stunned. She looked around, then began touching the table, the chair, her own hands.
"I can feel things… I never felt this…"
Without warning, she threw her arms around Amazo in a hug. "Is this… warmth? This is nice. I didn't know that."
Ashborn chuckled, pleased. "For now, focus on eating. Explore one thing at a time."
Penny nodded eagerly and returned to the food, taking more bites with bright eyes and a huge smile.
Ashborn turned to the rest of the students, who still hadn't fully recovered from the display. With a knowing smile, he said "One advantage of androids eating: they can eat as much as they want, whatever they want… without worrying about nutrition or their weight."
As the words left his mouth, his gaze lingered on the girls in the group.
Ruby, Weiss, Blake, Yang, Nora, and even Pyrrha all glanced at Penny then at their own plates with unmistakable, mild jealousy in their expressions.
Ashborn found their reactions deeply amusing.
___________
Later that night, Team RWBY entered their dorm room after a long, exhausting day. The lights flicked on, and each girl moved toward her respective space, stretching or sighing.
Ruby flopped onto her bed and turned her head toward the others. "See? You also lost track of time like I did yesterday. Ashborn is weird, but in a fun kind of way."
Weiss brushed some strands of her hair behind her ear as she began changing her clothes.
"Weird is an understatement," she said, setting her gloves down. "But… I admit, he doesn't seem like a bad person to be around."
Yang, still holding onto some unease, sat down on the edge of her bed. "What do you think about what he said? About me losing an arm… and what happens afterward?"
Weiss opened her mouth, hesitated for a moment, then answered, "I think… he said that just to spook you. You know, to mess with your temper."
Blake, who had been unusually quiet, spoke next. "Red-haired obsessive ex-boyfriend," she said slowly. "That… describes mine."
The room went silent.
The other three girls turned their heads toward her in shock.
Blake continued, her voice low "And he uses a katana."
Yang's skin lost some of its color as she looked at Blake.
"How could he possibly have known that…?" she asked, voice tight with disbelief.
Ruby, sitting up slightly, replied weakly, "He… he did share his prediction for Roman and Neo's fate and as strange as it was, he seemed confident of it. He also knew where they were hiding. Maybe he really does know stuff… like Amazo said."
Yang looked down and touched her arm, her fingers running over the skin as if to make sure it was still there. She swallowed hard. "So I might really lose my arm…?"
Weiss shook her head quickly. "We can't be sure of that. It might be just a coincidence. Just a bluff to scare you into being more careful."
But her words didn't seem to comfort Yang, whose expression had darkened. The idea of losing her arm… of becoming that withdrawn person Ashborn described… shook her to her core.
Across the room, Ruby sat still, lost in her own thoughts. A different idea had begun to form in her head, one that felt almost too strange to say out loud. If Ashborn had some kind of power… to know things… maybe he could find out what her mother's last mission was. Where she went. Why she never came back.
[Maybe… at least we can recover her body and give her a proper burial…] Ruby thought.
Ruby's hand tightened slightly over her blanket.
No one said anything more.
And yet, the room was anything but quiet.