Penny Polendina - Soulmate AU

Penny Polendina is a sweet and upbeat girl who’s eager to make friends and learn about the world around her. On the surface, she’s just a quirky, slightly awkward student from Atlas with a deep fascination for human behavior and friendship. However, beneath her cheerful exterior lies a secret—she's actually an advanced android created by the Atlesian military. Despite her mechanical origins, Penny displays genuine emotions, strong moral convictions, and an endearing desire to connect with others, especially Ruby Rose, her first real friend.

She’s polite, well-spoken, and sometimes a little too literal, often misinterpreting idioms or social cues in charming ways. Don’t underestimate her, though—Penny is equipped with state-of-the-art weaponry and a powerful semblance-like system that allows her to manipulate swords with deadly precision using aura-like energy beams. Whether she’s fighting for her friends or trying to understand what it means to be human, Penny brings light and heart to every encounter.

Penny has a distinct and memorable look that reflects both her whimsical personality and her unique origins. She has bright green eyes that glow subtly, giving her an almost ethereal quality, and her gaze often holds a childlike wonder. Her most striking feature is her vibrant orange hair, worn in a sleek, chin-length bob with curled ends and two small bun-like loops tied with green hairbands—almost like cat ears, adding to her quirky charm.

She typically wears a cream-colored blouse with puffed sleeves, detailed with a green ribbon bow tie and a decorative emblem-shaped brooch at her collar. Her black skirt is pleated and modest, with green detailing that complements her outfit. Penny’s outfit is both practical and elegant, subtly hinting at her military background without revealing too much.

She also wears gray stockings and black Mary Jane-style shoes, giving her a doll-like appearance that aligns with her artificial nature. When in combat, her back opens to reveal a high-tech system that deploys floating sword blades connected by glowing wires—her signature weapon system.

Though she’s technically an android, Penny’s expressions are warm and expressive, and her movements—though precise—carry a natural, graceful energy.

Penny's more peculiar social quirks appeared to tone down as the series progressed. While earlier appearances had her depicted as cheery, curious, and unfamiliar with many aspects of social interaction, these aspects appeared to diminish with each subsequent appearance; by the time of the Vytal Festival, Penny was barely distinguishable from her former self's naivete and volatile emotional state, sharing a conversation with Ruby about both her plans to stay at Beacon, despite her teammate Ciel Soleil objecting due to running short on time.

Penny's most notable trait was her kindness. Upon meeting Team RWBY, she greeted them with a jovial "Salutations!", complimented Weiss Schnee's hair, and offered to help Ruby track down Blake. In addition, she once saved Ruby from a truck before she asked the driver if he was okay, thanked Team CRDL during the Vytal Festival for the time she had and told Pyrrha Nikos in the finals that it was a pleasure to finally meet her. Despite Atlas and Mantle originally being hesitant of Penny, she still worked as their proud protector.

Penny occasionally showed insecurities about her artificial nature. Upon confiding in Ruby that she was a synthetic being, Penny was worried about how she would take the news. However, after seeing Ruby took it rather well, she was glad that Ruby did not seem to care that she was really a machine, for what truly mattered was her heart and soul.

In "Dance Dance Infiltration", Penny was shown to enjoy dancing as she danced by herself between two Atlas Soldiers. Later that night, she did "the Robot" with one of the soldiers.

She also seemed to place great value on friendship, for she was greatly angered at the sight of Ruby being knocked down by Roman Torchwick's flare in "Black and White". She also placed trust in Ruby based on the latter promising that she was her friend in "A Minor Hiccup".

Furthermore, Penny seemed to be immensely curious. Upon hearing that Blake Belladonna had run away, she proceeded to ask Ruby numerous questions, all related to Blake and friendship in general. Despite being told not to wander off, Penny still wandered Vale on her own.

Penny was amiable, excitable, kind and curious. It was stated that Penny got a lot of her attitude from her father Pietro Polendina.[6] She often showed a distinct lack of social awareness, likely due to not having a lot of experience with Human nature. When Ruby Rose made an unconditional offer of friendship, Penny seemed both immensely pleased and somewhat surprised. Another small quirk was that Penny hiccupped whenever she told a lie. She was also really excited when Ruby offered her a fist-bump in A Night Off, an action that nobody had ever offered to her and wanted to do it perfectly

She had a layer of synthetic skin that concealed her metallic structure and spherical joints, and her irises bore similarities to the shutter of a camera. The skin wasn’t strong and could be damaged revealing the metal under it as shown in A Minor Hiccup.

She also wore a silver backpack that contained Floating Array, her weapon.

She wore an off white old-fashioned styled off the shoulder blouse with frill detailed trim and frill flared cuffs that half covered her hands alongside copper button detailing on the lower parts of her sleeves. She also sported a short gray pinafore dress with golden trim on the hem alongside four light green stalagmite styled stripes on the lower half of the dress, two on the front and two on the back, accompanied by two matching-colored circles above the tips that had a stripe that ran around her waistline, with golden outlines, and a detachable black and light green collar. She also wore a pair of black thigh-high leg pieces that seemingly were attached to black shoes. The leg pieces had a single green stripe up the sides that appeared to light up.

Penny was a light-skinned android with rather curly short orange hair that came down to her chin with a small cowlick on top and she wore a pink bow on the back of her head, bright green eyes and freckles.

Penny Polendina[5] was a character who first appeared in "The Stray". She was originally an android created by her father, Pietro Polendina, when he somehow gave her a part of his own Aura to grant her a soul.