Polu poured himself a cup of coffee, he hadn't expected summer to arrive for at least a week. Still, it was probably for the best. He did need to speak to her after all. Taking a sip he sat down at the table.

"Uh-oh,"

"What?"

"You've got the dad face on, what did I do?"

"I don't have a 'Dad Face',"

"Yes you do,"

"Anyway," polu said through gritted teeth before taking a breath, "do you remember Nicholas Arc?"

Summer narrowed her eyes, "i mean, my team shadowed him for a mission so,"

"And you didn't come to visit?"

"Off topic,"

"Right, shit, well, a few months ago a hunter claiming to be beacon staff goes with him to scope out the area, and Nick comes back with a kid, ranting at me about a metal building that stabbed him in the forests,"

"Are we sure he didn't just get high? I hear poppies are pretty common round here,"

"The kid kinda counters that one,"

"Not convinced but continue,"

Polu scratched the back of his neck.

"Well, same guy comes round here and begins asking some questions, mostly innocuous ones, says he'd making up for the lack of data in your file,"

"When i was in my second year?"

"I know right, but i played along for a bit," polu leaned in, "then he began asking about a structure in the woods,"

"You're sounding pretty, uh, tinfoil hat there,"

"Maybe so, but a week later Atlas sets up an outpost a few miles away, apparently they're 'lending a hand to Vale's outlying villages'," Polu's air quotes and mocking mimicry caused Summer's eyebrow to raise.

"Everyone goes about as normal for a while, then, about a month ago, Grimm go for the outpost, not the village, but the outpost, while they're reeling, Faunus radicals go in and massacre them a few days later and blow up the outpost,"

summer blinked, "well that escalated quickly,"

"Yeah, sure did didn't it, well your old man goes in and does some rummaging before atlas scouts can get to it, i found these,"

Polu took out a box, inside was what looked like shrapnel that had once been computer parts, but it wasn't like Atlas tech, it had too much personality, too little cold efficiency.

Summer picked up the mangled piece of tech, letting it fit in her hand, it weighed less than she thought it would.

"Look on the top," polu remarked as summer turned it over.

Doing so she saw letters, a few were either burnt off or had torn away in the explosion, it read 'C iron Indu tri s Me ic l Po'

"Huh, mind if i pocket this?"

"Go ahead, that thing's been giving me paranoia all week,"

"Ok but why would you tell me, literally any of this,"

"Two reasons, one, like it or not this is definitely connected to that beacon guy, and that links it to you,"

Summer grumbled as she tried to scrb some o the burn marks off the device.

"Two, do you remember where I picked you up?"

She stopped scrubbing.

Captain Ironwood, official Director of project Rebirth looked at Dr Poledina through his scroll, the man looked like he hadn't slept, eaten or even rested in the time he'd been given, instead he'd been working, obviously on the designs he had sent to the Captain. In retrospect, putting an engineer in charge of a Biochem secret project, lacking in any other high level staff, was probably a bad idea. On the screen were schematics for a humanoid android, one that would dwarf Atlas's current tech, all using the last chip they'd received from outpost Alpha.

"Explain to me, Geppetto, why instead of using your vacation for rest, restoring your faculties, maybe grieving or lost coworkers, you appear to have done more work?"

Geppetto just sighed, "just look at the design James,"

The captain just sighed, "Gepetto, this is like ancient Valean to me, what have you done here?"

"Well, you know how the Structure made bodies before implanting those chips inside?"

"I am keenly aware,"

"Well what if we made one, but lacking the ability to just make more skin and flesh bodies, we just use materials we do have,"

Ironwood considered, the three did show proficiency, hell F-4 had been a prodigy that floored any test leveled at it-her with gusto.

"Perhaps, but this will be impossible for, well, years doctor,"

"I am well aware,"

Ironwood shook his head, the lengths of paperwork that this would make made his head ache, "if you are sure Geppetto, is there a name for your requested Sub-Project?"

"Penny,"

Summer's hands glided over the metal, it as definitely computerised, the bare circuitry showing was evidence of that. She placed it down on the table, Polu was definitely asleep right now, so she wouldn't be interrupted. In all her wisdom, she knew this was a bad idea, but in the face of that same wisdom, she just said 'fuck it'.

Summer's mind soared from her body and into the device, causing said body to slump back in the chair while her digital mind traced around inside the device. It looked like an office building after a bomb had gone off inside, papers and machines scattered around inside, so she got to work, picking up one of the papers and got reading.

"Happy holidays,"

"How wonderfully generic of you,"

On the other end Qrow chuckled.

"You never told us what you celebrate back at home,"

"And i never will, see you back at Beacon,"

Qrow closed his scroll and reached for another bottle of whiskey from Summer's stache. GOLD had left a year before them but the stache still went strong, even left some gifts for anyone that could find them, Notes from Glynda, which had still not, and likely never would be found, about a metric ton of the most caffeinated drinks Bart could find, and enough alcohol and ahem less legal substances, to put the entire academy into a coma from Daku, the three had placed about ten thousand Lien somewhere left unfound in memory of Daku's partner Lakipa who'd died on a mission in their third year.

The end result of this was students repeatedly searching for a ludicrous amount of money, illicit substances, notes and enough caffeine to eat the sun.

So far STRQ was the only one to find a piece of the stache, Daku's to be precise, and even then they'd only found the drinks.

Qrow was wholly detached from his teammate's ideas of romance, completely disinterested in anything Tai or Summer were doing and Violently disinterested in what his sister did with either of them.

He was content just to kick back and enjoy the shitshow.

Summer was hating the flight back, she'd gone from nothing to do to having far too much to do in about three weeks.

Her little shrapnel shaped project was sitting in her bag, waiting for her to continue re-organising it, she'd have to see Ozpin about that Atlas outpost and she'd have to talk with Raven and Tai. life just was not fair.

AN: I'm Back, and just in time for christmas. so how is everyone this fine evening, i just finished writing Chapter 13 and am steadily working my way to the end of the Epsilon Arc. speaking of, at the end of the Arc, i'll put up a strawpoll to vote over which AI gets the first dedicated chapter.

Have a good one

-Yackronin