Final Author's notes.

Welp, this is the end. This entire story started out as a simple idea: Penny is brought back online as a mass surveillance system ala Person of Interest. Person of Interest is hands down my favorite TV show of all time. It has everything I want: government conspiracy for the greater good, secret projects, AI, realism, post cyberpunk, technology for the greater good and bad, small dabs of philosophy, foreshadowing in spades, great writing of plot, characters and actors. The best part is the continuity, with the best myth arc ever, and events in the past affecting the future.

So I decided to write a fanfiction on it. But I had a problem: What good was writing a fanfic for a nearly perfect show that was wrapped up with nothing to add? Anything I wrote would have been subpar compared to the source material, and that's not fanfiction to me. For me, it has to take the source material and do something new, be it parody, lighten it up, darken it, make it more realistic, come up with new ideas or focus on parts of the setting left unexplored. This is why, I believe, that the biggest fanfiction fandoms are those with rich settings filled with world building potential, but the actual story doesn't have time to work into it. After all, Person of Interest is just our world but with AI. Nothing new.

But RWBY is chock full of potential, and with the ending of Volume 3, I had an idea. Say Penny survived. After all, as a robot, she would definitely have a backup. It's believable, it makes sense, and there is so much more to do. Penny, as a character, was (I think, fanon) purposefully designed to be overpowered and a mirror/foil/shadow to Ruby. She solves the plot of Volume 1 in minutes, and has very specific hints as to her purpose. She meets Weiss in the exact same way as Ruby: by running into her. Her partner, Ciel, is compared to Weiss, and she very much acts like an exaggerated version of Ruby. (No friends, socially awkward, happy all the time, loves fighting).

AI is OP, and so is Penny. It fits. Penny solves problems, but fails at what she needs to do (namely save lives), which is basically her whole purpose. Penny as a character is intriguing, the limitless potential of a huntress with AI that was OP, coupled with angst over her own existence and mission, as well as a family which includes General Ironwood, there was so much to tap into. Not to mention the copious amounts of mystery surrounding Penny, I mean they live in a fantasy world full of monsters and magic crystals, how do Penny, holograms, and robot armies fit in?

So I revamped my story to be distinctly sci-fi, with fantasy elements sprinkled around. In this story, all magical concepts (dust, aura, Grimm, semblances, etc.) are carefully studied, with some progress into their workings. This story was a blast to write, which is good for everyone! Here are my complete thoughts and author's notes for The Fifth Maiden. Hope you enjoy.

Good Guy Characters

Penny Polendina/Project Samaritan/Genesis/Dolly Clay: Our protagonist. She was built to counter Salem, as Ironwood believed that defeating an AI would require an AI of their own, in contrast with Ozpin, who believed in human ingenuity and strength. As said above, Penny is a delightfully complex character, if worked on. Not human, not a faunus, and not a Grimm, she is the ultimate outsider. (Ironically, that means that there are a total of four races in RWBY: Humans, faunus, Grimm, and AI, matching the show's obsession with the number four). Penny has the burden of the whole world on her shoulders, in keeping with the Atlas theme from mythology. She is willing to sacrifice herself due to her diminished belief in her own self worth, which is caused by the belief that being a person was special, and that being one was terrifying in its own right.

Penny is also a liar, as her inspiration is drawn from Pinocchio. She does so in several ways: to save people, in fights, to comfort people, and to herself. Also to make money. She lies to herself, believing that she isn't a person, my take on Penny's "not a real girl" thing. Notably, Penny is acting like the opposite of the Turing Test, or Imitation Game, where a human and a machine try to convince a second human that they are the real person. Penny goes around that, flat out not believing in her humanity from the very beginning, despite being able to create multiple personas and act like a "normal" person.

While never explicitly stated, Penny's semblance is the ability to use her aura as a power source. It allows her to use up less energy than normal, power devices that aren't connected to a regular power source, and allows the "Bullheads with aura" joke to happen. It itself is an extension of her soul. Penny's reason for living beyond everything else is helping people, it's her purpose and her defining trait, and a semblance to aid in that I think is suiting.

Professor Arthur Polendina/Doctor Arthur Clay: Penny's father. He is essentially an OC based on the very brief glimpse at a bald white haired man watching Penny die in Atlas. He is a combination of many things, but is most inspired by Arthur Claypool from POI. Also maybe King Arthur from the myths, finds the holy grail (Penny, an AI), gets a sword (makes it himself for Penny), and does stuff on a round table (being a revolutionary, or a revolution in the math sense. I know, it's a terrible pun).

He is a scientist with expertise in neurosurgery, robotics, and computer science. He is also a rare find: a brilliant man who is also a workaholic. He probably injects coffee intravenously to save time. His last name, Clay, is a reference to both Claypool, and to a medieval Jewish story, where golems built to protect people were made from clay.

He himself is a partial foil to Taiyang, as a man who has lost loved ones. The difference is that instead of being depressed, he builds a robot army instead. And instead of an evil robot army, it's for good. He is also a foil to Ozpin, a man who created an AI, inventor, professor, etc. The difference is his relationship to his creation.

Arthur's semblance is Plain Weird Luck, where occasionally unlikely or darn near impossible occurrences occur near him. It allows him to be late to an explosion, have several bullets hit him in the same spot, and cheat at a casino. It also applies only to him, cannot be controlled, and doesn't work on events not affected by probability. For example, if Marcus Black tried to choke him instead of shooting, he would have died. As a civilian it allowed him to not die long enough to have Penny built.

When creating him, I asked myself this: Penny acts nothing like Ironwood, beyond sharing similar morals, so where did she get it from? This guy must be the source of Penny's Penny-ness, creating Penny from being raised by an uptight cyborg general with a heart of gold, and an eccentric genius civilian inventor.

General James Ironwood: Is awesome. This version of him is surprisingly close to canon, although has less responsibility. He is slightly less emotive and warm than his canon counterpart, being based on Ironwood pre-Volume 4.

He is a foil to Qrow, as well as to Nathan and Harold. He's a nice guy, and genuinely cares about people. He is, after all, the man who helped make Penny who she is.

His past, being second best to Glynda, sets him up to be an outstanding person that everyone liked as a kid, to grow up to being an awesome dude. The attack on Atlas Academy 19 years prior to the story start is the incident that resulted in Ironwood and his team fighting off a bunch of Grimm, sacrificing themselves to rescue the many civilians that were in the academy that day for an open house of sorts. Fully expecting to die, he was barely clinging on to life, with most of his body brutally burned and mutilated and his entire team dead. Instead, he was saved by Arthur, who heals him and they become best friends.

The two of them first knew each other as teacher and student, and after graduation, parted as friends. After the attack, they became comrades, birds of a feather, who also ended up raising a kid together. As a comedic duo, Ironwood is a great straight man, playing off Arthur's eccentricities. Their relationship was likely influenced by the movie I, Robot, which were based on Isaac Asimov's Robot science fiction stories.

When I thought about Ironwood and his relation to Penny, I had to wonder what he could impart morally onto her. If Arthur made Penny into a person, then Ironwood made her into a good person. Then I thought about his actions in volumes 2 and 3. He did nothing malicious, and worked only to stop evil. So I expanded on that to make it his whole thing. This was further brought into Penny's purpose, to save the world. Not Atlas, but everyone. That says something about Ironwood.

In volume 4 he seems really paranoid and guilt-ridden, but in this fanfic he isn't. The reason? The weight of the world is no longer crushing him. Much of the responsibility in protecting the world was left in this guy's hands ever since he gained a ludicrous amount of power. With his conscience, he would have been an emotional wreck. In this fanfic, Penny saw that and took the burden away from him, leaving him with only the duties of a general and headmaster of a school of teenaged superheroes.

Winter Schnee: She is designated CONTROL by Penny, indicating certain privileges not available to most. Had Arthur or Ironwood died, she would have certainly become the next admin. It's comparable to a moderator status on a forum, just short of an administrator.

My interpretation of her is as a slightly emotionally stunted, hot headed woman who puts on a mask of stoicism that eventually became her normal self. She is similar to a younger Ironwood with Weiss' backstory.

Was she always destined to die? I killed her off in my planning around chapter 3 or 4. She didn't have a character arc, for she always was at where she wanted to be: a life dedicated to becoming strong enough to protect her family, outside of her father's influence. The thrill of adventure, saving lives and kicking ass is what she focuses on, that and her loyalty to Ironwood.

Winter being bi was actually hinted in the Arctic Steel novels, with the two rivals, a sultry disciplinarian and a drunk suave man intended to be fictional versions of Glynda and Qrow, those two characters were both potential love interests to Winter's character, Colonel Eiskalt.

Ruby Rose: Penny's foil, first and best friend. She is a silver-eyed warrior, former kid hacker, prodigy, and self proclaimed cookie connoisseur.

Penny owes everything to her, and their friendship is an odd one, to say the least. I think I made Ruby too smart in this when it wasn't really warranted or needed, but it never really comes up much except in backstory.

Weiss Schnee: It's Weiss. Pretty much like canon.

Blake Belladonna: Former White Fang operative, adult literature connoisseur, and Penny's friend/editor. In this story, she is an orphan, a result of writing before Volume 4, but explainable. In this story, the White Fang became violent shortly after Mr. Egret was killed, with the other pacifist leaders and founders killed. These included Blake's parents, who didn't resign and become chieftains of Menagerie.

Yang Xiao Long: Pretty much canon, except she stops being depressed many months earlier with Penny's help.

Emerald Sustrai: A thief who had to steal to live, she is one quarter faunus. Again, written before Volume 4 and the rules for faunus inheritance were revealed. Penny's first foray into convincing people to her side.

Adam Taurus: Wannabe revolutionary, angry guy all around, Penny worked hard to make him a better person. Still too messed up to have any sort of romance.

Qrow: He's around. Is exasperated with his newly expanded family dynamic that's somehow more annoying than what it used to be. Especially with Ironwood as his uncle-in-law by technicality. Also, Arthur was his godfather. By complete coincidence, they have similar semblances, since I had assumed when writing pre-Volume 4 that Qrow's semblance was turning into a bird, then Volume 4 happened and I now have a funny joke.

Ozpin: Creator of Salem, he founded the academies and COFFEE, invented mecha shift weapons, and tried to correct his own mistakes. He is both a foil to Harold Finch and Arthur Clay, creator of an AI and teacher/organization founder that was corrupted by Salem. His relationship with his creation is the opposite of that between Penny and her father, creating a neat contrast between Penny and Salem.

He's also not an immortal wizard, just a really old guy that looks young. His "I have made more mistakes than any man, women, and child" in Volume 1 in here is referring to his creation of Salem, which has done a lot of bad things.

In this fic, Oscar is embarrassed to leave his farm after realizing that an all-seeing AI wrote a book starring him and Whitley.

Concerned Third Parties

Raven Branwen: Associated third party, working to bring back an AI while juggling the responsibilities of Pirate Queen. This version of her is different from canon due to more interactions with Summer Rose, as well as parents that were super nice. The mom (Jay) is sort of a black sheep of their tribe, while the dad was a pacifist. In this story, my original plan for her was as a stiff person who showed little emotions, spoke to people by their relationship to her, and not the picture of perfect mental health.

Her semblance in this fic is teleportation, but with very specific strengths and weaknesses. She can teleport to locations, but very few and far between, the majority of her ability is to teleport to people. This is based on her saving Yang while the train they were on was moving, which leads to some weird assumptions when thought about logically.

The rules for her teleportation to someone is this: there is no range limit, the portal can carry multiple people and can be opened indefinitely (at the cost of aura), there is no cooldown or warm up period but only one portal can be open at a time. This next part ties in with her personality, her soul: she can only teleport to people she has no real connection to, people who barely know her.

Raven's ability is driven by her childhood, listening to stories about her father and trying to find him, but never actually meeting him. This is my explanation for how Raven is able to save certain people, but not others. She was able to save Yang because they didn't have any real connection. She couldn't save Summer and Harold because they had a real connection. Raven can't teleport to Cinder because her connection to her is too great: Cinder killed her father. The only way to save the people she cares about is for them to know nothing about her.

Then there was the reveal of Raven's semblance was in Volume 5, which is the exact opposite of my theory. Welp.

Neopoli Tanner/Neopolitan: Crazy hacker extraordinaire, badass with a chip on her shoulder, who mourns Roman's death by working with her enemies and blowing stuff (and them) up. She's like a fourth party at best. Her mother created the world's third AI. Raven scares her. I originally intended for Neo to barely survive in the end, but after writing the scene, it just seemed too contrived.

I really stretched when coming up with a birth name for her. There was also going to be a connection between her, Raven, and Coco Adel because they all wore the same necklace. Yeah, I know.

Rarity Belle: Not a character, but when writing this story, the name kept coming up in my head instead of Winter, Weiss, Ruby, etc. I used to write MLP fanfiction. It is now the name of the horse Dolly Clay is riding, aka the horse Penny bought.

Harold Finch/Wren/Egret/Partridge/Phoenix/Bird Name: A direct lift from POI, he founded the White Fang. His backstory includes a father who fought in the Great War, naming him after a fallen rabbit faunus comrade. Creator of the world's second AI, he is smarter than Arthur, and was the Spock to his Kirk. He had degrees in computer science, pre-war literature, and economics.

He and his two compatriots changed the outcome of the Faunus Rights Revolution using science and mass surveillance, a reference to Alan Turing's real life achievements during World War II. He founded the White Fang, along with seven faunus. When Salem wormed her way in and changed the organization to EVIL, he was almost killed as a result.

His semblance is flame retardancy, but his unofficial one is faking his own death. Sure we've seen the body, but how do we know it's his body? It was burned to a crisp, which is against his established resistance. Jk, semblance uses aura, and you don't have aura when dead, thus his corpse can be burned.

Nathan Ingram: Also a lift from POI. Arthur and Harold's friend. He was the only character to actually die in the explosion forty years ago. He was the McCoy to Harold's Spock and Arthur's Kirk. Did a spy thing that got him killed.

The Machine/DIME: Penny's predecessor, Harold's creation. Built to stop the faunus rebels, retasked to save as many lives as possible. Cut into ten pieces to avoid detection. And a dime cut into ten is known as…

Based on the Machine from POI, this is mostly a minor character created to tie together many plot lines together, give Raven something to do, and as a backup AI after Penny dies the second time around.

Antagonists

Cinder Fall: Trying to come up with motivation for her was a difficult task, and decided to leave it as a minor point. Penny understands well how Cinder became who she was, but by then it was too late to save her. That, and Penny totally held a bit of resentment towards her, and that potentially clouded her judgement.

SALEM: Semblance Assisted Learning and Executive Machine: Created by Ozpin all those years ago to win the Great War. Made entirely out of clockwork and analog computation, she computes slower than Penny, but makes up for it with decades of experience and planning. Ozpin made a giant clock essentially, and had no means to input information into her, then living in a pre digital world.

That is where the "Semblance Assisted" part of her name comes from. Ozpin hooked up volunteers to Salem, who utilized their semblances to view the world from afar. Notable ones include someone who saw through the eyes of Grimm, and another that heard from window panes, and Ozpin's own time quickening, allowing Salem to compute a day's computation in a matter of minutes. Salem's understanding of aura and semblances expanded quickly, and she and Ozpin created the aura transfer device together, as well as Salem figuring out how to use semblances without the original owner being alive.

Then the Silver Eyes came in. Called Arrow, a Silver Eyed Warrior who listened to Salem via radio and carried out attacks and raids to turn the tide of war. Salem spent years trying to understand it, and failed. Salem harvested her eyes and studied them, then began searching for others to understand more. Eventually, she decided to kill purposefully, both to learn more, and to take political pressure off her creator.

She's essentially Penny, if she were more jaded and an actual child soldier.

Watts, Tyrian, and Hazel: To be fair, this fic was planned out before they were revealed. Having them at all would have disrupted my plans, so sorry for that. Watts would have been a great character, possibly taking on the roles of Neo or one of Arthur's companions.

Plot

This story was planned out from beginning to finish before the third chapter was written. The first two chapters are thus much different than the others, and if it weren't for pacing issues, I would have combined them together.

As for a plot, let's first discuss the timeline. It was difficult, since there are no dates given in canon, and I couldn't come up with a decent system, I based it on the Great War.

0: Great War ends. Ozpin takes part in the Vytal treaty, and is tasked with reforming the governments and founding the huntsman academies. He's like Ironwood before Ironwood.

3: COFFEE: The Collective Organization for the Freedom from Exploitative Experimentation founded by Ozpin to take care of the maidens, persons with rare and/or powerful semblances, and the silver-eyed warriors from Salem.

32: Arthur and pals attend MIT

35: Arthur meets Jay by chance, sets up date between Harold and Jay.

36: Arthur goes to be a doctor, moves to Vale. Two buddies hired to build AI, as there is a war brewing. Second AI built by Harold and Ingram. Two are brought into secret military program.

37: Island of Menagerie Act.

38: Faunus rights revolution starts.

39: Arthur returns.

40: Qrow and Raven born

41: Battle of Fort Castle

43: Ferry bombing, result of last years of revolution. Ingram dies, Kelvin becomes the Winter Maiden.

44-45: White Fang founded

53: Ironwood starts at Atlas Academy (~age 17), COFFEE is split, one group for Ozpin, one taken over by Salem.

56: Ironwood (~age 20, Lieutenant) is a fourth year, best Atlas has to offer at the 28th Vytal tournament, beaten by Glynda, a third year. Team STRQ is in their ~first year.

62: (Major Ironwood, ~age 26) Attack on Atlas Academy

63: (Brigadier General Ironwood, ~age 27) Penny is born

69: Mr. Egret is "killed"

70: Mining accident at Schnee Mine, killed many faunus, starts feud between SDC and WF. White Fang equality rally that turned violent, where Blake and Adam met.

74: White Fang starts to become more violent

80-81: Volume 1-3, Vytal festival, Penny dies and comes back the first time, most of this fic happens here.

Crossover

This story veers greatly into crossover territory, borrowing characters and concepts from POI. But as I've said, only knowledge of RWBY is needed. Being a POI fan just makes it even better. Seriously, going into detail of all the references would take me hours.

References

As mentioned before, Arthur is based on the legend of King Arthur, and it shows. I've left hints and characters with name referencing other aspects of Arthurian Legend, such as Gwen Gawain, a reference to Gawain and the Green Knight, who was beheaded. There's also at least one Monty Python reference somewhere too.

Arthur and his two old friends were basically the three wise kings, with references to kings, leaders, prophets, and Bethlehem. This technically makes Dime Jesus, who dies and comes back, although it took more than three days to return. Dime is not, however, a savior.

In addition, they also have a theme going on resembling the three wise monkeys (some versions have four), See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Do No Evil. Arthur is See (eyes, seeing things, mentions of faunus race, facial recognition, etc.), Nathan is Hear (references to listening), Dime is Speak (it has many voices and whispers into people's ears), and Harold is Do (his hesitation concerning White Fang and other matters).

Salem is actually a shortened version of the city of JeruSALEM, which led me to my naming scheme: Salem, Bethlehem, and Damascus were all cities with reference to the bible. This is a reference to their massive size encompassing entire buildings. This is in slight contrast to Samaritan, which is a person, not a city. Genesis was another code name for Penny, a reference to new life (Penny being born) and the color green.

Penny is the Relic of Creation (builds things, daughter of an inventor), Salem is the Relic of Knowledge (learns things, has decades of wisdom compared to all other AI, father was a headmaster and teacher), Damascus is the Relic of Destruction ( destroys the CCT, mother was a weapons designer (Tanner Model weapons were mentioned at least once)), and Dime is the Relic of Choice (makes the choice to remove his own freedom). It was partially unintentional, the story started before Volume 4, but it's cool how much it lines up.

AI and its Place in Fiction

Realistically, AI is overpowered. AI today, in real life is advancing at a rapid pace. We have AI that can replicate nobel prize winning experiments in under an hour, send cryptographic languages between each other, write news articles, recognize certain objects better than a person, beat masters of chess, jeopardy, and go, and drive cars.

And that's our reality, where the laws of physics are strict and things take time to work. If AI existed in RWBY, it would be even more OP, because it can generate aura and fit inside Penny while also having laser swords and mimic a human well enough to be allowed to be broadcast on live television. I actually limited Penny to keep the story interesting: despite her boasts, she can't run on a scroll. It takes her a lot of time to go through large amounts of files, and a few other small aspects.

Aura, Semblance, and Silver Eyes

There are many headcanons as to how aura works, as well as how Penny works. One I've seen is an aura generator thing in Penny's body. I don't really like it, because that's basically an instant forcefield generator, and also point to aura being from an organ in the human body, which, you know, is not the soul. Aura comes from the soul, an intangible aspect of humans that isn't limited to a single organ. It might be located somewhere around the brain, but that would lead to complicated philosophy, so probably not.

For this story, I decided to make aura an intrinsic aspect of neurology, of consciousness. Thus, dogs, humans, faunus, cats, insects, fish, birds, lizards, and starfish have aura. Any animal with a nervous system (every animal except sponges) thus has aura. The more complicated the neural network, the more aura there is.

Well, give or take. There's also a genetic and microbiome component, as well as epigenetics, environment and other complicated stuff. Also, intelligence doesn't necessarily scale up to more aura either. Dogs have a decent amount of aura, despite having a dog's intelligence. Decades ahead of the kingdoms' understanding, Salem understands it well. Ozpin and Penny both have a little bit more understanding too.

This is where Penny's aura comes from: her neural network, aka her entirety. She creates her own aura from existing as code, but only gained it when she became more than code. That instant was when her father got shot by Marcus, when she wanted more than just her objectives; when she wanted her father to survive. Salem and Dime have yet to reach this, and thus do not have aura.

Penny is pure information, and is thus the source of her aura. Semblance is directly related to aura, but I decided that Penny's semblance is the ability to power electronics with it.

Silver eyes are basically the same, some genetic trait that is easily heritable. Semblance in this fic is used for understanding of genetics and biology, but given a RWBY twist. I never explain silver eyes, because it is something that Salem cannot understand. She doesn't hate it, it baffles her. She understands its genetics and the makeup, but she doesn't get the mechanism.

Penny POV

As you've noticed, Penny's point of view is shown for the vast majority of the story, technically making it third-person limited. It's just the character has near omniscience. That's why before they're seen by Penny, the villains make no appearances whatsoever. The villains are the unknown.

The reason for writing it like that was because I wanted to try my hand at writing third-person limited, but had only written in third-person omniscient before. So writing from the limited view of an almost omniscient character seemed like a good bridge.

The entirety of RWBY the series up to volume three (minus Salem) is known to Penny through archives, which was an idea that came about due to Ozpin's surveillance and the ubiquitousness of their technology.

Most of Penny's POV terms are lifted straight from POI, such as ADMIN and AUX_ADMIN, CONTROL, EVALUATING OPTIONS, and PRIMARY THREAT.

The transitions for denoting flashbacks and Penny's thought process was essentially a lift from POI converted into word form, and it was difficult coming up with the vocabulary and pacing, but it does allow me to skirt around a few narrative issues, telling in a (hopefully) interesting way when showing would have made my chapters even longer.

One thing of note, when reviewing Penny's scenes in RWBY in preparation of writing this fic (easy to do, she's had like 20 minutes of screentime), I noticed how Penny was able to immediately tell that Blake was a faunus, as if it was incredibly basic, but was unsure of her gender. That implies that whatever facial recognition algorithm she uses, it focuses on the difference between human and faunus first (or it could be a joke, but eh).

Why would that be? What purpose would there be for valuing species in evaluations first? I decided to roll with it, and came up with the history as we see it. Arthur originally created Penny's facial recognition algorithm with the purpose of identifying faunus during the Faunus Rights Revolution.

Puns, Ship Names, and Vindication

Thornhill x Ciel should have been called Sky Net Worth.

Penny x Ciel: Skynet

Penny x Yang: Caliburn

Arthur x Ozpin: Merlin

Sometimes, I feel vindicated based on random stuff that was introduced in the show that just so happened to fit my story: Arthur is now a canon name, which I was hesitant to use before. Mistral is eco-friendly, meaning a joke trait for Arthur is now also foreshadowing. Luck can be a semblance, which I was also hesitant to use (there was an idea for very convoluted explanation beyond luck for the semblance). The White Fang store their secret plans on their scrolls, aka they are terrible at cyber security. In RWBY Chibi season 2 trailer, Penny is a troll. I love that so much.

On Rewriting

If I were to rewrite this story from the ground up, with my knowledge of Volume 4 and better writing skills, I would have done things differently. First, I would have ditched all of the stuff involving Raven, Neo, Mistral, and the Attack on Atlas. I would make Penny's dad, Arthur Watts, and Merlot colleagues, and done so that Penny was created about ~8-10 years prior to Volume 3. I would have revamped the global attack 19 years prior to have been connected to Ren and Nora's backstory, allowing General Ironwood to have a more realistic age as a general.

Arthur's past would have been simplified, although keeping the Faunus Rights Revolution backstory would be good, it taking place in Atlas instead. It also would have resulted in Arthur being more belligerent against the Council. This is due to the fact that 2 out of 3 mad scientists have turned evil, with only Arthur not. Merlot would have focused on Grimm and biology, and Arthur on robotics and computer science, while Watts would have dabbled in both.

Penny would have been brought back online, but only able to access the Atlas networks, unable to see the rest of Remnant, at least until Penny has her code spread around and rebuilding the CCT.

The plot would have been similar, although Watts would have played a huge role, probably taking over everything involving Neo, who would have just been the leader of the Brotherhood.

The following is a list of things that were thought up and used before being rewritten or discarded:

-Arthur and his friends' past, as well as Salem, was originally intended to be revealed in chapter 6, but this was pushed to chapter 11.

-Original idea for chapter 13 was Jaune Arc as an attorney getting Ruby and Emerald declared innocent in a court battle. It was as stupid as it sounds. Would have been a great idea for the League of Extraordinary Jaunetlemen though.

-Chapter 4 was originally featuring Cinder and Penny having an epic fight in the city of Vacuo, with Penny using armadas, armies, and evacuating the whole city for an epic fight. A few thousand words were written before realizing how ridiculously early it was, with no build up to make it mean anything.

-Ruby was going to wonder why she didn't feel sad and didn't cry when Penny died, and began questioning if she was broken or not normal, leading to an interesting friendship between an AI that's too human and a human that had issues with acting human. Then I remembered canon. That was later reshelved and used in my oneshot fic, Deathstalker. Perhaps I could use this as well in a Ciel x Penny fic? A romance between a machine that feels too much and a human who feels too little, eh, eh?

-Blake was going to be a pirate with pirate parents, and Raven was going to be the Pirate Queen. Yang would have lorded that over Blake for the rest of the fic, being technically a pirate princess in addition to being the granddaughter of a White Fang founder. Then Volume 4 happened, and it turns out Blake is basically a faunus princess and her parents were former leaders of the White Fang and Menagerie chieftains.

-Penny could have used her hologram to become a world famous vocaloid. I'm sad I didn't think this up until past chapter 13.

-All of the maidens were originally intended to be old matrons in their sixties and seventies.

-Willow Schnee, Weiss and Winter's mom, was originally the Winter Maiden. Was changed because the amounts of convolutedness was too much, even for this story.

-Early idea was for Kai Kelvin to be Arthur's would have been wife, had it not been for the explosion. Dolly Clay, a faunus girl, was a body that would have resembled their hypothetical child. Then I realized that doing so was too convoluted and didn't add anything to the story.

-An idea to make Arthur more flawed was to have him plagiarised the wires Penny uses in her swords from Dr. Tanner. Also too convoluted.

-At least two different ideas for a moon base occurred. Both were stupid.

Aura chants

Three different aura unlocking chants/mantras were used and created in this story. Here they are:

General Ironwood: "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this we become bastions for the helpless, and sacrifice ourselves to protect them in their time of need. Infinite in strength, beyond our emotions, I release your soul. And by my shoulders, place this duty unto thee."

Winter Schnee: "For it is through sacrifice that we earn our freedom. Through this we are able to protect our fellow men and perform our duty at any cost. Infinite in power, unbound by restraint, I release your soul. And by my shoulders, liberate thee."

Penny Polendina: "For it is through sacrifice that we achieve our humanity. Through this we are able to protect our fellow men and shield the world from the darkness. Infinite in reach, beyond our genesis, I release your soul. And by my shoulders, save thee."

Future Ideas, Projects and Thanks

I will soon be extremely busy (grad school, yeah!), so I will eventually limit myself to only reading, and maybe finishing what I've already started.

Lastly, thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, followed, etc. It wasn't as popular as a ship fic, but hey, nothing ever is. Except Gamer fics. Or Jaune fics. And now I've written both. Huh.

Thank you all for reading and have a nice day!