Team SABL Ch 7
Rig, Sunday morning
The team came to in to room they'd hunkered down in one after another. Alicia was still by the door she had chosen to gaurd. Beatrix was next to her having joined the pinkette later in the evening. Lulu had fallen asleep sitting up with her back to the wall. Silver's head was on her lap. His wound had clean bandages from last night and his aura was up accelerating his healing now.
"What's the plan?" Lulu asked Silver running her fingers through his hair.
"We are going to reactivate the Rig. Its systems are analog and dust propellants were expensive especially, for a venture this far out in unclaimed land. So it shouldn't have a dust reactor. With that in mind does anyone know machinery inside and out?" Silver asked slowly sitting up and moving back towards the wall.
Beatrix looked stumped at that one. The one with a story for everything and could do anything (within reason) did not have an answer. Lulu tore into a ration bar Alicia tossed her.
"If I knew machinery I wouldn't be wearing suits and killing Grim." Lulu smirked at him.
"I'd give you fair odds at being a doctor though." Silver thought for a moment before adding on.
"Maybe you could be a nurse instead?" Lulu hit his good arm.
"I actually know about machinery." Alicia piped in holding a mug of crappy coffee in her hands.
"Good. Then Alicia and Lulu will go reactivate the Engine Room. Beatrix and I will go to the control room." The girls looked at him threatening him bodily harm.
"It's only the control room and I promise I won't fight. I'll teleport out of reach if it gets too bad." Silver bit into a ration bar with a look of disgust on his face.
"One of your simple plans again?" Beatrix chided him.
"Overly complicated plans never last. Better to go simple and adjust when everything goes to hell than make sure it all hinges on one exact moment." Silver pointed out taking a water bottle from Lulu.
"He has a point." Alicia sipped from her drink as she chided Beatrix.
"We move out in ten minutes." Silver said.
20 minutes later Lulu and Alicia
"Do you have an idea of what we might find when we get to the Engine room?" Lulu asked having enjoyed the silence and Lack of Grim for the last nineteen minutes and fifty-eight seconds.
"With it being fifty years old it could be one of four things. A dust reactor is possible, however unlikely. They were as Silver explained ridiculously expensive." Lulu looked at her like they weren't and considering they were everywhere today.
"If you attempted to purchase one of these reactors for an outing like this the prices skyrocket because they are valuable. An example of this would be taking quarterly earnings of the Schnee dust company this spring. But that also covers transportation, installation and maintenance for the last thirty years. That's twenty years unaccounted for. Thankfully there built to last." Alicia rattled off as if it was common knowledge.
"That is quite expensive." Lulu tried thinking of what one could do with that much money besides run a global company.
"Then again that is accounting for inflation." Alicia added as they continued on.
"Okay, if it's not that then what could it be?" Lulu focused on the matter at hand once more. Finding the Dust dammed engine room.
"It could be a hydro-electric engine that would account for it being set in a swamp and would have actually been cheaper. Then again it might have degraded to a degree and just might be broken. Thankfully our scrolls get enough signal strength to call each other, just not enough to call out for help." Alicia looked around with more intent.
"Oh, I was here yesterday. It's where the Grim started pushing me and Beatrix down other corridors. That's an imprint of my hammer in the wall." She pointed to a dent in the wall.
"I've found a flaw with the hydro electric power." Lulu said looking at the wall.
"The water down below doesn't flow fast enough and right now it reeks of things that should never have existed." She explained.
"Ah. Well, in that case. Perhaps it was an ultra compact self sustaining Jupiter coil?" She tried sounding optimistic as they continued going through the rig.
"And a Jupiter Coil is?" Lulu asked as they saw a sign that said Engine Room with an arrow pointing towards it.
"A Jupiter Coil is actually two pillars twenty feet tall made of tightly compacted and purified gold as well as several minor bits. The static in the air causes a slow build up of electricity between the pillars over time until the first bolt flashes. And then it never stops." A smile of happier times lit up her face.
"Best science fair ever." She muttered lost in thought.
"Then how was the one here stopped?" Lulu burst her bubble.
Alicia frowned at that. "They would have had to break one of the pillars. But, that would also make the room exceedingly dangerous."
They now stood outside the engine room. A large sign over the door read Engine Room Danger Authorized personnel only. The door had a large wheel lock on it firmly sealed shut.
"Shall we begin?" Lulu asked as they both took a side and started pushing.
The lock was old, rusted and heavy.
"A pity our semblances rely on what we can see rather than what we want." Lulu groaned as the door finally opened after ten minutes of solid turning work.
"I really hate that sometimes." Alicia agreed panting for breath.
Entering the room they found it in relatively good condition. Nothing was shooting sparks and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. It had consoles in the middle and windows looking into the main engine room.
"So, what could the last engine be?" Lulu asked as she started dusting off a seemingly smooth portion of a panel to reveal a warning sign for radioactivity.
"Worst possible reactor it could possibly be is nuclear." Alicia said as she wiped dust off a panel.
"I think your right." Lulu stepped up to look through the window.
Before them was a large sphere with numerous wires and lines coming out of it. There was an access bridge from the sphere to a door in their room. What was on the on the other side of the access bridge they couldn't see so great was the distance.
"Actually I was wrong the whole way here. That's an Aura core." Alicia said sadly.
Thirty minutes ago Silver and Beatrix
"If I may sir, why do you dislike being called sir?" She asked him as they made for the control room.
Silver adjusted his sword on his back. With his left arm in a sling to keep him from using it and being out of bullets the Tonfa mode of his weapon would have been pointless.
"I don't like being reminded that I'm in a position of power from people." Silver said as he looked out a broken window they passed by. It was on the west side so there was no sun on the horizon. Like this, no Grim, no battles, the world looked a little brighter.
"But, you are in a position of power." Beatrix sounded annoyed.
"Sometime's the guy in charge doesn't want to be reminded of it constantly. It leaves a horrible after taste." Silver shot back now frustrated with her.
"You've lead a team before?" She asked subdued.
"I'm not sure. I washed up on Vale's shore eight months ago. My mind was full of holes and I didn't speak the language." Silver sighed as he was reminded of his loses.
"I'm sorry." Her voice tight with emotions contained.
"Don't worry about it. I wanted us to bond as teammates without our past's getting in the way. I wanted to give everyone a chance to be themselves." Silver explained dismissively.
"I was raised in a military family. A long and dedicated live of service. Join the army, stay safe, don't become a hunter. You'll live longer. Where ever there's a hunter Grim follow. All of that was my life right up until a swarm of Grimm swarmed our village. There hadn't been a Grim attack in years. We didn't want a hunter around bringing them to us, so we drove them out." She paused as her throat closed up at the unreleased emotions.
"You don't have to continue if you don't want to." Silver said continuing to walk on.
"No, I started so I have to finish. I was one of the protester's trying to get rid of the hunters and not even a week after they were gone. The Grim came. It was so fast and I don't even remember that night with any clarity anymore. Only that when day came the Grim were dead, only a few had survived the attack and the hunters we had driven out were back." She sniffed a little and Silver paused in his search for the Control Room still not looking back to her.
"What did the hunters tell you?" Silver asked as he waited for her to get her composure back.
"They said that they had lied to the council for years. They had put on an act for the town. So, long as we were all happy the Grim wouldn't come to the town giving them all space to work with. But when we started protesting to get them thrown out the Grim had only increased their attacks. But they wouldn't tell anyone. A hunter's job is to keep the monsters from our doors. That's what they said. And they thought they had done that. A week before they were finally driven out of our village they thought they had brought down the Grim numbers to single digits you could count on one hand. And then we drove them out." Anger coated her words; whether they were at her or at others he couldn't tell.
"You didn't have to tell me all of this." Silver pointed out still staying away from her.
"You had to know. It was only fair." She said her composure back in place.
"I still don't want to be called sir. And you seem to have kept yourself together. Maybe I should have a guy's night out let your ladies deal with each other." Silver said his thoughts aloud.
Beatrix punched his good arm. "To do that you need to go befriend more guys. Being alone isn't a guy's night out." She pointed out mock ridicule in her voice to mask her joy.
"I'm thinking team JNPR would make good friends." Silver said as they started walking again.
"I think team RWBY would be good allies as well." Beatrix added.
"True, but JNPR has two guys I can befriend to have that night out. RWBY does not." Silver jested.
"What about going on a date instead? Surely you'd at least consider someone." She teased him.
"Dating is off the table." He said quickly.
"Oh, is it because you swing the other way? Could I watch?" Her face had changed to a look of lustful curiosity.
"No, I definitely like the female form thank you very much. I just get this feeling in my gut saying I already have someone. Where they are I'm not sure, but it wouldn't be right until I settle it." Silver explained as they came upon a sign that said Control room that way.
"But you didn't answer my question. Who would you ask out?" She asked again.
"That is a loaded question. So I am not answering that." Silver said sarcastically stopping before a doorframe that said Control Room.
The control room was littered with the remains of several long dead people. Their bodies decorated the floor where the Grim had killed them. The control room itself had a panoramic view of the Rig and beyond with plenty of consoles scattered about inside of it.
"Here's hoping that Lulu and Alicia found the engine room." Beatrix Said as she wiped off a console trying to see what it was.
"I think we have a bigger problem." Silver walked towards the windows and focused on pillars of white in the distance upstream of them.