[II:I] Return and Rebuild
It sounded like a choir in practice before the big show. Unfortunately, it also sounded like they had a long way to go before they were ready. Dissonant and out of tune, dozens of voices clashed, possibly even hundreds. It wasn't easy to identify any single voice within the cacophonous mess. Something about it though, was oddly comforting, similar to the idle chattering buzz of a city.
In the dull blur if sound, a single shriek echoed through the white noise. Then the busy-street buzzing returned. The background noise continued for some time, until one more, a second shriek pierced the white noise. Only this time, it didn't go away. A second voice added it's inhuman scream. Then another, and another, and more and more joined in, until the sound was deafening.
Everything went utterly silent, then came a faint whisper from behind.
Stick tensed up and jolted upwards, coughing himself awake. Beside him, the top shelf of the small, two shelf bookcase leaned forward and fell off the metal rack it rested on, spilling a multitude of hardcovers onto the carpeted floor, with a series of muffled thumps. Stick swept his fingers across the nightstand. His glasses, not what he wanted. He knocked the case for his contact lenses right off the nightstand and onto the floor. Still, not what he wanted. He felt the strap and the metal he was looking for, clasping his hand around his watch. With a free hand, he rubbed his eyes and dangled the watch face in front of his own. It read just a few seconds after 4:13. In the morning.
Stick sighed and fell backward into bed. He figured there was no use trying to get back to sleep now. He yawned and rolled out of bed. Stick knelt on the ground, and patted tentatively along the floor underneath the bed. Once he had found the contact lense case, he straightened out his back and rose to his full height. He replaced the small plastic case onto the nightstand, taking his glasses in return. He slid them over his ears and looked at the pile of books on the carpet.
Stick made short work of refitting the shelf and replacing the hardcover texts to their original places. Following which, he exited into the hallway, and rounded the short corner into the bathroom. He closed the door and flicked on the lights, and he blinked a few times in response to the sudden brightness, before his eyes adjusted, and he found himself staring directly into his own eyes in the mirror, a deep brown color.
In the mirror, he watched as his unbandaged hand ran through the thick white hair atop his head. It hung lazily down to his chin, covering his left ear entirely, and partially obstructing his vision on that side. He tried to blow it out of his face, but it stubbornly flopped back into place, worse than before. Within a few seconds, Stick had produced a hair-tie and tamed raging bedhead. His reflection inspected the short ponytail, in contrast with the sides of his head, which remained close-shaven.
Stick checked his arm - it had taken longer than usual, but it was finally healed, he supposed that made sense for burns - then flicked off the lights and left the bathroom. In the hall, Stick tilted his head and look towards end of the hall, which lead into the living room. Unless he was mistaken, he could've sworn the kitchen lights were on.
A few soft lights rested on their lowest setting, and in the half-light of the kitchen, Stick wandered into the presence of the the two current women in the house. Of course, to be truthful to their ages, they were young woman, still easily considered as girls.
Tawney turned from the kitchen counter with two undecorated white mugs, and paused when she saw Stick standing quietly in the empty opening to the hallway. She smiled.
"G'morning to you too, then." Tawney said, in a quieter variety of her usual forceful way. She handed one of the mugs to Magnolia, who accepted it with a near-silent 'thank you'. Stick took a chair from the dining room table and lifted the woven wicker seat on wooden legs it into the kitchen. He took a seat, and sighed as he leaned back.
"Yeah, I had some trouble staying asleep tonight." Stick admitted. The long, tan colored, concave ears atop Tawney's head twitched in her dusty blonde hair. She pulled out the stool next to Magnolia, sat down, and took a sip from her own mug, before leaning an elbow on the countertop and resting her chin in her palm.
"I know the feeling, dude." She said, taking another sip. "Love the hair, by the way. You look good in white, and the ponytail's..." She stared at Sticks head a moment, looking for a word. Then the change in her face told Stick she had found it. "... it's quaint." she finally said, "In a good way." She added after a few moments to assure Stick that it was a compliment.
"Thanks, I guess..? You've seen it before, you know this happens every winter. Only, my body's just now finally realizing it's cold out." Stick said. There was a moment of total silence, between the trio, and even the outside world, all except for the barely-audible sip of Magnolia lips on the edge of the mug. At the present moment she was what could be considered as far more humble - that was one word for it- clothing. When she was wearing pajamas was one of the few times anyone would have the rare chance of seeing Magnolia in pants.
"Wait, hold on…" Tawney said, breaking the silence. She looked at Magnolia, who looked up, and back at Tawney. Then Tawney flicked her head back to guy in the room. She did this a few times, then exclaimed.
"Holy crap! You two match. That's fucking adorable, I love it!" Her hands were in fists and shook excitedly. If she hadn't put her mug down before this revelation she would likely have spilled the liquid inside all over the floor. Both Stick and Magnolia reached up to feel their respective white-haired ponytails. Then she stopped suddenly.
"Oh, damn, wait. I didn't even ask, you want some?" She asked Stick, pointing to her mug with her thumb. "It's tea." Tawney informed Stick, before he asked. "Not the fancy stuff from Mistral" She added, turning to Magnolia, "Sorry about that, this stuff from Atlas is probably pretty bland, huh?" Magnolia shook her head.
"I don't mind." she said, taking another sip. Tawney turned back to Stick who shook his head as well.
"No thank you, I'm fine." He said. Tawney shrugged, and took a carefree swig from the mug. Then she coughed and stuck her tongue out.
"Agh, hot…" she muttered. Magnolia laughed quietly behind her, as Tawney sat with her tongue out, in a vain attempt to fan away the pain with her hand. Eventually the room settled down into a peaceful stillness, only the occasional sound of a light sip filling the hush. Tawney rose from the stool, bringing her unfinished drink with her in one hand, while with the other she absentmindedly rubbed one of her cheekbones as she walked. Coming to a stop in front of the kitchen sink, she leaned forward and stared out the window and into the starry night sky. Her eyes wandered around the dots of light above, then slowly made their way downward, where her attention fell upon the harbor, where the shadow of the airship's hull dominated the water. The vessel sat on the water's edge, a patch of darkness within which the starlight's reflection was unseen in the lightly rippling waves of the harbor.
"I still can't believe it." Tawney stated plainly.
"What, the ship?" Stick asked. "It's old, and the design a bit, different than normal, I'll agree, but-"
"No…" Tawney responded. "It's Albatross that I can't believe." she paused and turned to face her white haired companions. "Dude, the old man's like, spec-ops."
Stick nodded silently. He closed his eyes for a moment.
The airship's bow thrusters disturbed the waters of the harbor below. Albatross's dingy of a fishing boat rocked over the waves, bumping into, and bouncing away from the dock beside it, but always coming back, the thickly woven lines tied too firmly to the metal cleats of the dock to let the boat go free. Across the harbor, a number of other boats held firm to the shore. As it was, the unknown military vessel quickly laid claim to a significant portion of the water along the northernmost shore of Drydock's natural harbor.
It had been a process moving the dropship through the hangers on board the airship, but it wasn't impossible. With purposeful certainty, Stick directed the airship forward. In front of him, the starboard hatch to the hanger, a massive gate of metal, opened slowly to the outside. Even from within the cockpit of the dropship, Stick could practically feel the wind as it rushed past him.
Thyst watched the Atlesian dropship rise vertically, clearing the top deck. He turned to Albatross with a nod, and the captain issued the command to seal the hanger. The dropship, a mere toy in comparison to the scale of the airship it was hovering about on, made few small adjustments, before setting down a short walking distance from the superstructure at the rear of the reclaimed airship.
"Hold down the fort Oia, I'm going ashore." Albatross requested of the glowing artificial intelligence.
"There are no military installations in our immediate location, captain. I am unable to fulfill this order." the blurry-edged ball of light responded, pulsating with each syllable. The captain sighed, then smiled.
"Oia, keep the ship safe." he said, rewording his request.
"Aye, Captain. Security systems online." the female monotone responded. The captain stood from his seat and stretched his back.
"Oia, keep the systems on low power, I don't suspect any threats here, it's friendly territory. We'll be back soon enough." Albatross assured the AI.
"I await your safe return, captain."
"Thank you, Oia."
Tawney stood on the raised porch, wrapped in a quilt, as the familiar dropship landed in her backyard. She gripped the quilt tighter against the rush of air the dropship generated as it lowered itself into the yard, the thought of losing her thick improvised cloak being too terrible to allow.
As Albatross climbed the steps to the back porch, Tawney pointed from under the heavy quilt, but was unable to vocalize anything other than a prolonged "uh…"
"Yes, Tawney. The large ship behind me, I am aware." Albatross answered the unasked question. "Now get inside, you don't have any shoes on. It's too cold for that."
Tawney paused and looked down at her bare feet.
"Hey wait!" she cried out, "Magnolia is barefoot…"
"And Magnolia isn't my daughter, now get inside." the captain repeated.
Team TSNM, along with Tawney, now changed out of the clothes she had slept in, stood silently around the countertop between the kitchen and the dining room. There was no discussion, but plenty of questions hung in the air around their heads.
A familiar creaking of wood. The door to the cellar opened, and the bearded captain entered the kitchen. When he said he was going to give them answers, Team TSNM had assumed he'd come back up with his arms laden with files, but to their surprise, his hands were almost entirely empty, except for a copy of the current novel he was reading. He placed the book on the counter and looked at the youth gathered around him.
"Magnolia, if I may, can I use your sketchbook for a moment?" he asked. Magnolia nodded and left the room for a moment, returning shortly, and handed the compendium of her drawings to the captain, hiding her reluctance to do so. He placed it gently on the counter.
"Thank you." he said, as he opened the front cover and flipped through the pages of sketches, scanning for one in particular. He arrived at it and placed a sturdy looking finger next to the Grimm recorded on the page. His calloused fingertip rested beside the head of a certain massive centipede.
"You encountered this?" he asked the team. Thyst nodded, nervously flipping the small metal chip he carried between his fingers. Albatross nodded to himself in return. "Hourglass." he stated. "That's where it was." Thyst looked to Nickelas, who looked back nervously. Albatross reached over to the novel, opened it, and removed the bookmark with pinched fingers. He tossed the square bookmark onto Magnolia's sketch. "Look familiar? He asked.
The bookmark wasn't just a page-holder, Thyst noticed. This was a photo. And there it was, the exact same Grimm he had fought back at those sandy ruins. The image was branded with TRACKER-84.
"You killed it." Albatross stated, sliding the photo back towards himself and spinning it so it was oriented correctly for his viewing.
"We did." Thyst answered, before he realized it wasn't a question. The nervous chip flipping stopped.
"More like, you did." Stick suggested.
"You crashed a Bullhead into the thing's face, Stick." Thyst retorted, pointing the metal at Stick. Stick didn't argue it. Albatross reached up and grabbed the metal chip from Thyst.
"This right here is why we call them Trackers." the captain explained. Stick looked up at the captain's face.
"We?" Stick asked. The old captain smiled.
"Operation Lullaby." He said, crossing his arms and standing as tall as he could. "See kids, this is part of our the history your academies don't like to teach."
"Stick, hey, hey Stick. You fall asleep?" Tawney asked. He came back to the present.
"Sorry, no, wait, sorry, no. I'm not." Stick muttered. "Just lost in thought." Tawney tilted her head and pursed her lips.
"Well, as I was trying to ask, how are the repairs coming?"
Stick put his hands on his knees and leaned forward in his chair.
"Ms. Rite is making this a lot easier than it would be if it we're just Nick and I swinging powertools around" he answered. "The hull's patched up completely, no leaks, which was the our top priority." He counted on his fingers. "The reactor's good, honestly that thing might be more powerful the some of the modern designs, but it's missing a few crucial pieces, so it's not operational at full efficiency… the one of the rear engines is shot, it flies, but if we get the reactor up and running at full power, before we fix the engines, I bet the damn thing would just explode from the power surge." He looked up at the ceiling and looked at a list of goals only he could see, "Not to mention, we haven't even tested the weapons systems…"
The Mistral underworld was a breeding pit for crime, and in certain parts of the kingdom, the vice was almost pungent in the air. If one went even deeper, it was an almost palpable fog in the alleyways. To the common person, it was almost undetectable, but to the trained eye, certain buildings seemed to give off a menacing Aura of their own.
A man with a squared-away hair, and a noticeable scar on the left side of his jaw sat with two other men at a four seat table in one such building. One of the two men sat with his chair tipped, and his legs reclined over the open chair. The establishment was poorly lit, filled with smoke, and smelled of men who had long since come to the conclusion that personal hygiene was for stuck-up prissy types. The man slammed his glass down as he delivered the punchline to a less-than-respectful joke about a pair of faunas on a boat. He laughed with drunken aggressiveness, drowning out the combined laughter of his two drinking companions. The trio's laughter died off, and gave way to the bar's meaningless chatter. The man with the scarred jaw leaned back in her chair and sighed.
"I would'a sweared the Boss'd kill me the moment I walked back in his door without even a fistfulla Dust to give'im." he said, letting the chair tip forward again. The man with his legs across the empty chair chuckled.
"Would've been for the better if he did." He quipped.
"'Ey, now that's not very nice." the scarred man responded. The third man at the table shook his head.
"Nah, Slate. I agree with'im, if you die, then I get your position."
"Oi, well fuck you, too." Slate retorted, pointing at him with a finger extended from the hand clenching his drink. "Glad to know that's how you feel about m-" he stopped mid sentence. As he stared on with annoyed disbelief, a figure came up to the table, wearing sunglasses, and without a word, lifted the one man's legs off the chair, with considerable verbal protest. "Hey kid!" Slate barked, "The hell you think you're doing to my buddy?" The figure, who couldn't have been a legal adult for more than half a decade pulled the chair out and took a seat.
"This ain't ya table kid, you trying to make a scene?" the man whose legs had been moved asked. The new arrival ignored him.
"Slate." He said. His voice was eerily calm. If Slate wasn't already three hard drinks in on his day drinking, he might have found it oddly soothing. "Listen kid, I don't know how you know my name…" He muttered, as the newly seated person adjusted the deep colored trench coat he wore. It was the kind of color that if he were to spill red wine on it, then one would barely be able to tell there was a stain. In the wearer's case, it wasn't red wine, however, that taught him this. He cut Slate off.
"Word on the street, Slate, says you decided it would be a good idea to steal Brinewater property." As he spoke, a silver chain dislodged from the folds between his shirt, and coat. It slipped out, and revealed an intricate silver cross, which dangled loosely, and on a few centimeters from the tabletop. Slate recognized that cross. "And I had thought that you at least, weren't that ignorant." the one with the cross said. "You know Brinewater is off-limits." Slate looked up just as the figure across from him took off his sunglasses with a gloved hand, revealing the deep red, emotionless eyes behind the lenses.
"Hol'up hol'up hol'up hol'up. Didn't realize it was you, man." Slate stammered, his two companions looked at him, and he nodded as nonchalantly as possibly. The two men seated on either side of the table reached for their weapons, slowly. "That wasn't my call, ya'know, I just do what the boss says. You wanna talk, bring it up with 'im." Slate said, shrugging.
"I already did, came right here when I was done." the red-eyed figure responded. "I'm just tying up loose ends." He leaned forward slightly in his chair. "On an unrelated note, you may want to start working on your résumé."
Slate pushed up abruptly from the table, with surprising dexterity for a man who had been in a dive bar for the past couple hours. He reached for the pistol on his thigh, the two men with him at the table standing moments after he did, reaching for their weapons.
The younger, red-eyed figure leaned forward slowly, and pushed back from the table in his chair, the wooden legs skidding along the floor, as he ducked under a baton swing from the man to his right. Rising swiftly, with a single fluid motion, he kicked backward and hooked the left side of his chair, with his heel. The seat tilted slightly to the right, and a gloved right hand took hold of the backrest. He twisted his upper body and swung the chair into the baton wielding attacker. The chair splintered on impact and he dropped the wooden scraps. The chair-struck man fell limp and dropped onto the table, causing it to tip over, spilling the remaining drinks across the floor and himself, as a result.
The red-eyed figure sidestepped as Slate fired indiscriminately, his aim distorted by alcohol. Slate watched as the person he was trying to kill kicked the fallen table across the floor, and at remaining companion. The table collided with the man's legs as he fumbled for his switch-bladed knife. The wood connected with a crack, and swept his legs out from under him, causing him to fall forward. The figure in the red coat grabbed the man's arm as he fell and swung him, lifting over the shoulder and then down onto the floor next to the unconscious man soaked with the foam of foul-smelling drinks. The man's body came down hard onto the fallen glass mugs, which shattered and crunched under his weight. He cried out in agony as the now blurry red shape moved over him toward Slate.
Slate fired a second bullet at the threat, missing by mere inches, but the figure didn't so much as flinch. With a series of movements Slate was unable to follow, the gun was wrenched from his grasp and before he could react, the gun's barrel was turned on him.
Slate raised both his open hands into the air, any and all confidence he once had gone from his spirit. He laughed nervously.
"What's the big deal? You stopped us didn't you? Sent your… You know…" he gulped, "Your little chauffeur, didn't you? He and his pals… they returned the trucks, right? No harm no foul." Sweat beaded on Slate's forehead. "Maybe you and me can just talk thi-"
A sharp pain unfolded just above Slate's waist. He looked down at the source of the pain and found two bullet holes, almost overlapping, in his shirt. Blood was already starting to soak into his shirt. He looked at the gun in his opponent's hand. The barrel was smoking lightly. Slate fell backwards onto the cold wooden floor.
The figure nonchalantly tossed the pistol onto Slate's chest and walked away. The bar would be utterly silent and motionless around him, were it not for the light swishing of his red trench coat as he passed through the door, and exited the building.
"My driver?" He repeated to himself, musing the question, as he removed the sunglasses from his coat, unfolded them, and slid the tinted lenses back over his eyes. He pulled a matchbook from another pocket within his coat, and removed a single tightly wrapped, and extraordinarily clean white cigarette from another. He pulled a match from the book, and struck it on the back of the folded matchbook, and the red tip burst alight. Lifting the flame to his lips, where the small white object rested he transferred the fiery glow onto the cigarette, in a cupped hand. He then promptly shook the match out, extinguishing the flame, and tossed it aside into the street. Maybe it was about time that they got caught up.
When most people thought of the western fringes of Solitas, they usually thought of drained and empty dust mines, and the surrounding scrapyards, slowly rusting away into the folds of time. And they wouldn't be wrong to think such things. The Dust deposits on this part of the continent were not nearly as plentiful and abundant as further inland. For years, nearly a decade and a half, no one had used these facilities for a single thing. And so, miles of perfectly viable scrap metal sat unclaimed. More importantly one might note, plenty of useful machinery.
To say these locations were devoid of life would be a lie. While no plants grew in this near-frozen industrial wasteland, and very few animals could settle comfortably in these surroundings, a certain type of creature found this location to be just right for some unperceivable reason.
A lone Boarbatusk dug into the hard, frost filled dirt with its large win tusks. One tusk was cracked, and just as it reached the apex of its spiral, it stopped. The other tusk spun in a neat spiral curling back so far as to leave the sharpened tip of the tusk pointing downward at the ground. Red markings dotted the Grimm's tusks and head, both of which were a bone-like material of pale white, even more so than the freshly fallen virgin snow on the ground surrounding the Grimm. It grunted audibly and beat at the ground. Then it stopped suddenly and went still. The Grimm looked up and stopped moving.
A disc of metal, or more accurately, a hexagonal ring, curved through the air, spinning rapidly, and dug itself into the Grimm's side. The Boarbatusk squealed out in pain. A figure, a deep and purple against the blue-grey sky, stood high above the Grimm, atop a scrap heap, whose summit was made of the rusted bodies of cars. Even as the Grimm searched frantically for its attacker, the figure extended a second arm, a long, double-ended blade collapsing down into a second ring of sharpened metal, which he threw with devastating power, energy crackling from his fingertips as it left his grip. Like a frisbee throw, the circular blade tilted in the air, coming down hard, and vertically on the oversized hog.
The figure bent down like a sprinter on the block, and was motionless for a moment. As he watched the second blade soar through the air, he tensed his entire body. Electricity crackled from his back, enveloping him like a cloak. In an instant he had vanished from sight with a loud crack.
Suspended in the air above the Grimm, Thyst reappeared. He grabbed his chakram in his left hand and it unfolded in his grip. He spun and buried half of the extended blade into the back of the Grimm's neck. As he kicked off the black mass of the Boarbatusk's body, he snatched his second weapon and sent the Grimm's body hurtling into a pile of rusted metal. The black mass began the process of sublimation almost immediately. Thyst stood over the vanishing corpse, and pulled a bolt into the small crossbow on his right forearm. There was a thumping in the ground.
Seemingly drawn by the noise of conflict, a surge of black, white and red rushed suddenly became known around him, but Thyst stood still where he was. More Boarbatusk emerged, their squat sturdy forms taking over the the spaces between scrap heaps. On the tall piles of metal, Beowolves clambered to the peak of the artificial hills, and a horde of Creeps filled the spaces in between. The setting was eerily still.
Then a single Beowolf made its move. the Grimm dashed down it's pile of scrap, running on all fours. As it reached the base of the pile, it compressed its body and sprung forward with violent intent. Thyst was still, failing to even acknowledge the Grimm.
A bright beam tore through the Grimm's torso, and it split down the middle. The remains of the Beowolf's body landed with a two distinct thumps on either side of Thyst. Behind him, Death Rattle hissed as it cooled off. Thyst raised his hand into the air next to his head, and flicked his wrist forward.
The scrapyard erupted. The Grimm came in waves, the first of which was comprised almost entirely of the bipedal and fodder-like Creeps. The awkward anatomy of the monsters stood little chance against the trained Huntsmen. Bulky legs that served as the Grimm's only limbs were cleaved cleanly from their respective bodies under the precisely delivered slashes of the glowing edges of Nickelas's blades. Stepping from one Creep to the next, he dispatched each with a little less effort than the last, finding a simple rhythm to follow.
Beside him, Magnolia prioritized her targets, as gained ground on the oncoming Grimm, she threw both hooked knives from her grasp, adjusting their flight, then pulling tightly back on the chains, until she felt resistance. She lept into the air, and landed squarely on the face of a Creep, using the Grimm as a springboard. Soaring into the air, she flipped her entire body, and with it, the body of the Creep spun with her, like a large flail through the air, hooks of metal stuck in the Grimm's back. The Creep came down hard on a Beowolf, slamming both Grimm into the ground with a violent crunching. A cloud of dirt and powdery snow erupted from the impact and knocked the surrounding Creeps bouncing away from Magnolia as she landed. Without turning, Magnolia pulled her arms back and freed the hooks from the Creep. The loose knives swung in a wide arc around her, and while her arms stopped, the chains continued through the air, until they collided with something solid. The waist of a Beowolf in fact. The thin metal links wrapped twice around the Grimm, knocking it off balance. The two stood like this for a moment, the Grimm bent back slightly, Magnolia leaning forward, looking in the opposite direction. A small, faintly purple object collided with the Grimm, followed by the entire body of Thyst. In an instant, the upper half of the was torn from the Beowolf, leaving only a pair of hind legs and a chain wrapped waist. The torso of the Beowolf slammed into a scrap heap, then from an unseen force, promptly imploded, pulling the rusted pile down on it. After a moment of stillness, the scrap was blasted in every direction, the massive chunks of shrapnel cutting through surrounding Creeps. Magnolia recalled her weapons to her grasp, and slashed to the side, striking down a miraculously surviving Creep. Thyst stood up straight, and loaded a second purple tipped bolt onto his wrist. He scanned the battle, just in time to watch Nickelas dodge-roll away from a spinning Boarbatusk, allowing it to hurtle past him. The tusked Grimm spun on a sharp angle and came once more hurtling towards Nickelas. This time, he took a low, wide stance and with Argent's shield configuration producing a small concentrated wall of light, he caught the Grimm head on. His feet dug into the ground, and he slid back a few steps. Then with a purposeful shift in his footing, he angled his shield and Thyst watched as Argent split down the middle, and Nickelas took hold of the paired swords. With a flash of calculated movement, Nickelas swing downward and caught the Boarbatusk before it could react, following the initial strike with the second half of Argent. The Boarbatusk let out an anguished cry, and came to a stunned halt.
Where the Grimm's tusks once were, only sizzling stumps remained, Nickelas stepped forward, kicked the Grimm in the snout, and flipped his grip on the two halves of Argent so he held the sword back-handed. Nickelas drove both blades downward and through the top of the Grimm's head.
Behind Nickelas, atop a pile of scrap, Stick was on the defensive, fending off encroaching Creeps with the handgun he chose to keep for just this reason. Bodies piled up, and black smoke filled the air around him, mingling with the sound of gunshots, as Stick rapidly changed targets and reloaded fresh magazines with drilled, rigid efficiency. As he did, the shape of a Beowolf crept up behind him, silently, and prepared to strike. Without so much as looking, Stick took the pistol in his left hand, and dipped his right shoulder, letting Death Rattle fall into his hand. He corrected his grip on the weapon, then swung it over his left shoulder, thrusting the barrel of the gun into the underside of the Beowolf's jaw. He pulled the trigger and a bright beam of energy shot through the Grimm's head and into the sky. As the Beowolf fell, Stick swept Death Rattle in a large arc, pulling the weapon's second trigger as he did. A dense white cloud enveloped the remaining Creeps in it's heated embrace, and by the time it had cleared, every Grimm before him lay dead. Stick reslung Death Rattle and knelt down, before leaping off of the pile, a turquoise spark flashing beneath his foot as he pushed off the otherwise loose footing.
Magnolia finished off a Boarbatusk with her tail, then threw a small knife at a second as it spun past her. The Boarbatusk stopped mid spin, it's body locking up, just long enough for Nickelas to catch it with his shield and fling the Grimm's dead weight to the side, where it was impaled on a protruding spike of metal. It squealed a moment before going silent and limp.
"So what exactly am I carrying at right now?" Thyst asked, as he cradled a metal cylinder towards the rear of the buggy.
"That," Nickelas answered, from within the vehicle, where he was securing it with a series of straps. "is a battery. A very large battery." It'll hold any run-off energy from the ship's reactor, and store it for later, in the design of the system, these are used to lower energy waste as well as keep the system running efficiently." Thyst nodded slowly.
"I just wanted to know what they were, but thanks anyway." He said. Nickelas shrugged. There was a solid metal-on metal thud next to them. Thyst and Nickelas turned to the sound, just in time to see Stick hoist another solid metal object over his shoulder and into both arms.
"Take this for me, will ya?" He asked. Nickelas shimmied over and extended his arms to take the object. Stick released it into his grip and Nickelas nearly fell forward, out of the buggy.
"A little… warning next time..?" Nickelas groaned.
"Careful, it's heavy." Stick said.
"Thanks." Nickelas replied.
"And that," Stick said, turning to Thyst, "are the only two replacement control rods I could find for the reactor." He stretched his back and sighed. Though, I suppose I should be happy I found any at all." Thyst nodded and looked to the horizon.
"If that's everything we needed, then let's get a move on back to Drydock. I'd hate to keep Albatross waiting, he seemed rather excited." Thyst said, as he swung himself into the buggy. Stick smiled.
"That, and more." he said, strolling to the driver's side of the buggy.
A rusted pile shook itself loose and tumbled outward into the surrounding area. In the distance an engine could be heard, faintly drifting further away every second. Two sets of sharpened white tusks pushed through the scrap and into the clearing. It's front legs weren't hooves like it's rear two, but rather tightly muscled claws. Spikes, like thorns, lined the four tusks that reached forward from the creature's ivory-masked face. It lowered its snout the to ground and took a whiff of four distinct Auras. The soft fleshed didn't come normally come out this far, there was nothing for them here. So why today? With two clawed forelegs and two hooves of its rear legs, the Grimm sauntered through the scrapyard. The soft fleshed little ones were going away from their hive in the east… Bored, and curious, he followed the trail.
