A/N: Apologies for the delay. Getting sucked into other projects. Regardless, NEW CHAPTER!
Chapter 11: Hurry Up and Wait
Several days rolled by and nothing of real noted had happened, sadly for the Vault Hunters. The teams had their classes, learning about their weapons and enemies they would be facing, leaving the Vault Hunters alone and on their own. They were, for a lack of better words, bored out of their minds. Usually they could go out and do some missions or take on some bandits, but this world was much more civilized so there was a lack of hunting to do. Their days usually resulted in a lot of sitting around and reading up on any suspicious activity involving slagged Grimm or ancient ruins being dug up.
Once the weekend came around, Gaige was the lucky one to work with Arthur on analyzing the Vault Key fragment. They were going to see what they could pull from the key, whether it be information or even how much power the thing could hold. She got herself ready for the day and headed for one of the decommissioned dorms that were set to be torn down. The dorm looked just like one of the normal dorms, only a bit more worn but still fully functional. The dorm even had a pathway with a row of rose bushes out front, although something piqued her interest. The bushes that flanked the door looked… off, almost like they were fake.
Her budding paranoia went full-on as the rose bushes burst open, revealing hidden gun turrets, a myriad of laser sights scattering across her body from not only the camouflaged turrets, but as a few of the windows overhead opened up and matching gun turrets slid out to place from the high ground.
"Halt. Identify yourself," a warbling mechanical voice coming from a speaker above the door ordered.
"GAIGE! THE NAME'S GAIGE!" she yelped, the laser sights following her every move.
"Processing... No listing found. Please present Visitor's Pass."
"I... I don't have one of those..."
" . . . "
A moment of tense silence and the gun turrets ratchetted their ammo into place, the gun barrels adjusting their aim. The electronic voice bellowed "Trespassing on an Atlesian Forward Operating Base is a punishable offense. You have ten seconds to vacate the premises."
"Hey hold on a minute! I'm here because we need to study the Vault Key!" Gaige pled, ready to whip the Fragment out if she was asked to. When she showed up, she seriously did not expect this level of security.
" . . . "
"Huh... Didn't think that'd work-"
"Physical force will be authorized, in five seconds. Thank you, and have a pleasant day."
"Oh lug nuts..." Gaige groaned, prepping to bolt before the dorm's double doors burst open.
"WAIT! DON'T MOVE!" Arthur blurted as he flew out of the doors. All Gaige saw as she whirled was a flash of white before she was tackled to the ground, unfamiliar hands frantically grouping at her adolescent body before she was grabbed by the shoulders and presented to the wall of sentry turrets dominating the front part of the dorm.
"LEG'GO OF ME YOU MANIAC!" Gaige shrieked as the laser sights honed on her sternum.
"Visitor's Pass detected. Welcome, Gaige comma [Surname Unknown]. Have a pleasant day."
"Say what now...?" she gawped as the security turrets powered down. Glancing down at her chest, dangling from a lanyard now-placed around her neck was a transparent card with an RFID Chip and various circuitry running throughout, the words Visitor's Pass slapped across the top of it with a crisp label.
"Geez, you'd think Ozpin would've warned me I was having visitors today. I'd have prepared a more-hospitable welcome if I'd been properly forewarned," Arthur said as he helped Gaige to her feet.
"HOLY SHIT YOU'VE GOT WOLF EARS!" the ginger suddenly gawped, pointing at the pair of white canid ears that sat atop his snowy haired head.
"Coyote, actually," he stated, flattening the white hair that'd been flaring out wildly in all directions last she'd seen him.
"Sooo... Did you stick a fork into an electrical socket or what?"
"The humidity of the Precur-I mean, Eridian ruins, made my hair frizzy," he said combing a few stray hairs back into place with retractable claws, his hair combed backwards revealing tall and narrow lupine ears. "Hopefully the more-temperate environs will have people ceasing to question my use of dining utensils."
"You're awfully chatty, aren't you?"
"I simply wish for my more nuanced thoughts to be conveyed into an easily-interpretable form," Arthur waved off, gesturing towards the double doors. "Please, come in. As long as you have that Visitor's Pass around your neck, the point defenses won't attack you."
"Geez, hair-trigger much?" she huffed as she passed the line of fake rose bushes.
"A necessary deterrent against international espionage. Or nosy teenagers looking for an out-of-the-way location to 'canoodle'. Can't get anything done over the sound of headboards banging on walls," he answered as the two of them entered the foyer to the dormitory. The place looked slightly abandoned, a layer of dust on most of the old furniture, but the common area looked like it'd gotten some kind of cleaning. Passing it by, the two walked into what looked like a cramped office at the rear wall of the first floor, a large taxidermy Boarbatusk head dominating a hemispherical mantle of stone above and below. "I trust you have the Vault Key Fragment in tow?"
"Right here," the ginger said patting her SDU. "So... Where's this lab of yours? And what's with the dead pig?"
"If you have the key with you, we can move on to the lab," Arthur said over her. "Gaige, pull the lever!"
"You mean the tusk?" Gaige questioned as she gestured to the tusk with her thumb. This was all… beyond weird. Whole thing just screamed "secret passage". Arthur gave a nod of the head returned in affirmation, the ginger nodded her head in turn before grabbing the right tusk and giving it a pull down. A moment later and a portion of the stonework beneath Arthur's feet gave way like a trapdoor, the Faunus falling for a couple seconds before a loud *SPLASH!* was heard.
"Uhhh..." Gaige hummed confusedly before a wall to her left slid up, light pouring in as a sopping-wet Arthur strode into the room from a flight of stairs, the end of a crocodile's snout clamped on the back of his lab coat.
"Wrong... lever..." he said through grit teeth, slapping the snout off of him with the back of his hand and sending the large reptile scampering back, whimpering like a dog before the wall closed behind it.
The Faunus wringing out his coat before tossing it on a nearby hanger, Arthur then grabbed the left tusk and gave it a pull, the floor suddenly upending the two of them beyond the wall and depositing them onto a hemispherical cart with a pull-down bar, colored gray and lupine in theme.
"For your convenience we ask that you observe all secret lab safety instructions," the same voice from before said in a slightly upbeat tone, Arthur folding back his ears as the cart jumped forward, Gaige's stomach leaping up into her throat as they shot down through the mouths of several robot-themed cut-outs, made a couple S-turns, and then a series of sideways spirals before they hit a bumper at the end of the line, the two of them upended again and inexplicably, clad in white laboratory cover-all's, black rubber gloves, and round safety goggles.
Also, she had somehow managed to execute a perfect 10-point landing.
"Wha... Bu... How...?!" Gaige gawped.
"What? You guys have faster-than-light travel but you don't have secret lab roller coasters?" he asked incredulously.
" . . . How did you build all this?!" she gawped gesturing out into the tunnel connecting them to the surface, and then to the expansive lab she now found herself in.
The lab might as well have been a bomb shelter, the walls, floor, and ceiling were all concrete and reinforced steel, high ceilings, artificial lighting, the humming of air purifiers and circulators, an entire research lab's worth of R&D equipment as far as the eye could see. Nearly every type of tool, equipment, work bench, and work-site luxury was all laid out before her like a dedicated secret lab without the caveat of being secretly evil.
She hoped, at least.
And it wasn't just lab equipment. She could see hallways off to the side with labels over them like Living Quarters, Shooting Range, Game Room, Showers, and so on.
"Seriously! How the hell did you build all this?!" she asked taking everything in, eyes still wide even though she'd seen much weirder. Gaige eyed the adjacent hallways, doors shut to who knew how much more space, and explained "I haven't seen... any construction vehicles going in and out of Beacon, yet it looks like you hollowed out an entire gymnasium down here! And that's just what I can see!"
"Tell me, do you know what Semblance are?"
"Of course. Ruby told me about them."
"Well, mine is called [Lightsmith]. It basically lets me absorb matter, convert it into energy, and either re-construct it outside my body exactly the same, or break it apart into base components which I can use to make other stuff," he explained. "It actually isn't all that dissimilar from the 'Storage Deck Units' I've witnessed you guys using at the firing range, only instead of being tech-based, its quasi-magical."
"Damn, that sounds really useful," Gaige said nodding her head. "So, can you do that on the fly, or what?"
"Not so much 'on the fly' as... If it's something simple, like a shield or a blade, I can make it quickly, but any level of complexity and I need to take my time with it," he answered.
"So you basically 'ate' a tunnel and lab under the dorm and flash-forged reinforced steel and concrete to keep all the dirt out?"
"Yeah, pretty much."
"Cool, cool," she nodded as they stopped. Looking up, she saw a corner filled with research equipment, and overhead sign reading Eridian Research Sub-Lab. "You have... way too much time on your hands."
"It helps not to be interrupted by alien constructs," Arthur dismissed and then held out his hand. "Now, about that Vault Key Fragment."
"Ah, right, here," she said drawing it out, the older teen holding it reverently in his hands before he placed it on a dais, a hemisphere of glass folding over it as a multi-spectrum scan of it was initiated. The teen then moving over to a bank of computers and eyeing the readout, she decided to ask something that'd been bugging her. She asked looking down at herself."How the hell'd we get changed into these scrubs?"
"Don't you have technology like that out in space?" he asked as he continued to eye the feed, his ears waggling independently of one another every couple of seconds.
"That's not really the point..."
"Hey, something I've been meaning to ask more-directly, except setting up the FOB took precedence," Arthur said in turn. "What are the Vaults like that you and your friends have encountered thus far? I'd like to know what we are possibly dealing with here on Remnant before I plan for contingencies."
"Honestly? They could be anything, really," she shrugged. "One of them was a lock box for a giant tentacle hentai monster, another was a weapon cache for an Eridian super-weapon called 'The Warrior', another was repurposed to hold pirate booty, and the last one I've opened spat out modern-day weapons for some reason..."
"So then the term 'Vault' is a catch-all term for Eridian storage repositories, and they're only quasi-magical to less-technologically-advanced space-faring lifeforms?"
"I guess? Never really gave it much thought. Was more worried about being a wanted fugitive and-"
"I'm sorry what was that?"
"Not my fault! Marcie touched my robot!"
" . . . Don't you hate when that happens?"
"I know, right?!" she gasped. "Wait... You're cool with me being a wanted fugitive?"
"Are you a wanted fugitive on this planet?"
"Well... No."
"Then no, you being a wanted fugitive doesn't bother me," he returned, turning back to his screens. "Back to the important stuff, are there any Eridians still alive or was it some kind of mass pan-galactic extinction event?"
"No one really knows what happened to them. They just kind of... vanished," Gaige shrugged. "Have you guys figured out any of their language?"
"Not a lot. The same rules governing language still apply; certain characters appear more-frequently than others and some only in conjunction with certain others, but what we have is far from a comprehensive interpretation, and honestly, not really my department."
"Huh. Shame. If Tannis were here she probably could've told us what the writing on the ruins in Atlas meant. She was able to tell us that the Vault holding the Destroyer opened once every 200 years with the key."
"Hm. So then the Vault Key stockpiles energy over time... Its possible that to the Eridians, 200 years is 'no time at all'," the Faunus speculated. "It seems like this one may be doing the same thing. In terms of mass-to-energy, the ratio is much greater than any Eridian artifacts recovered prior, and though the increased percentage in the time we've been talking is relatively minor, put that growth into a projection extending forward two-hundred years, and this Key Fragment would have quite the substantial store of energy in a couple centuries, give or take the odd decade and leap years..."
"Though now the question is, why is the key charging itself? If the Eridians wanted to shut the door on 'The Heretic' permanently, why not throw away the key?"
"Well, we are dealing with aliens. Well, more alien than you and your compatriots at least," Arthur amended. "Their society, culture, and motivations are literally alien to us, but hypothetically, the Eridians might've been trying to starve 'The Heretic' out so he could be killed which, hypothetically, couldn't have been done in the then-ancient past. Assuming we give the difficulty of executing Eridian fugitives an upward logarithmic curve instead of a geometric one, its possible that the Vault itself might be on the decline, but the charging of the Vault Key allows for the necessary preparations to be scheduled, so that way he couldn't slip out of the vault at an odd moment, regain his strength, and undo the Eridian jailers' planning," he hummed, stroking his chin. "Mind you, this is purely speculatory. Without further evidence, I might as well be writing screenplay."
"You know... I think you and Tannis would really get along."
"That or we'd be at one another's throats the entire time," Arthur shrugged. The scanner letting out a loud *DING* and the hemisphere opening up, Arthur gingerly picked up the key before placing it on a different platform, drawing an electronic microscope and visor to himself and looking over the markings and visible wear.
"Still, if what you're saying is their master plan, that it'll only be possible to kill 'The Heretic' once The Vault opens naturally... we might have too hold off opening it altogether until the appointed time..." Gaige stated, since their standing plan was keeping the Vault locked tight. "I mean, you don't give living keys," she said in reference to Maya, "visions of burning cities and ominous hands of doom if all that's in the Vault are a bunch of guns waiting to be picked up."
"Mmhmm," he nodded. "The general might be too wrapped up in the politics of the technological arms race between Kingdoms to look at this objectively, so even if no one else says so, I'm in your court on keeping the Vault shut until we're good and ready for it. You and your lot are the resident experts on it. Even the crazy one who talks to himself knows more about Vaults than anyone on Remnant."
"I'm sure the others will appreciate the sentiment," Gaige sighed.
"Sooo... while I have the new scans compiling..." Arthur said stepping away from the visor and rubbing at his eyes, "have you had any thoughts of upgrading your arm? Not that there's anything wrong with it as-is, but now that you have access to a proper manufacturing base..." he shrugged gesturing to the myriad of machines lining the opposite wall.
"I might have a few~" Gaige said with an eager grin as she rubbed her hands. Sure, the workshops on Eden-5 might've been more-sophisticated than the setup Arthur had, but the actual principle of manufacturing was the same, pre-space-faring tech or not. She said pulling a folded-up piece of paper from her pocket, covered in doodles and shorthand, but by the nod Arthur gave her, he could follow it just fine "I might've come up with a few ideas."
O00000O00000O
Blake sat in her bed and read from her usual selection of books, not even bothering to get out of her bed clothes. Her friends had already left for breakfast, but she wasn't very hungry so she stayed behind. She was flipping through her book when the door slowly opened and the familiar black shadow of her assassin reading mate. He took his usual place at the center of the bookshelf, sitting with his legs crossed and his book open in his lap. She had grown accustomed to another presence in the room, and she was starting to enjoy the company, even if they never really talked.
Her curiosity had grown about the assassin since their last conversation at the bookstore. He would sit there and read like she would, but the fact that his helmet never moved was a tad disturbing, but the same could be said for her if she wore the same helmet. She turned her page, Zer0 turning his own just after and that was the only real sound that came from the room. She decided to press a little bit more about him, see what she could get out of him.
"Question for question again?" Blake asked. Sure, it was a bit out of the blue, but she figured he might want to break the silence too. Zer0 looked up from his book, head moving back and forth slightly like he was bouncing the question inside his head.
"Fine." He replied, thinking that talking would be a nice change of pace from the silent reading, even though he enjoyed it. Quiet was a rarity for him on Pandora, whether it be the usual rabble of Sanctuary, the sounds of a bandit camp or the howls of the beasts, quiet was something that never really happened.
"What made you want to be an assassin?" Blake questioned as she looked over at him. He closed his book and sighed, the visor turning up at the ceiling. She noticed his shoulders drop while his hands clenched on the book a bit.
"Born to it." Zer0 stated plainly. It was true, he was born into the life and didn't exactly get a say in it. Simply do what you are told and you get to live, or else you end up dead with someone else getting the chance at life. He brought his head back down and asked his question, "Why are you here now? A student here at Beacon? I am curious."
"I… I needed to get away from my old life. A choice I made turned out to be the wrong one, and this was a better one." Blake answered, closing her own book as she reflected on the answer. She was running away, away from her life that was with the White Fang, the Faunus terrorist organization. When she found out the person she was following was a monster, she ran from them and came here to become a Huntress… and maybe she could right some wrongs.
"Understandable."
"Thanks… never really told anyone about that. We might be spending too much time together." Blake chuckled. She wasn't sure why she was feeling so comfortable around Zer0, maybe it was just the quiet silence they enjoyed. Birds of a feather and all that jazz, but it seemed to be true enough.
"Perhaps."
"My turn. Are you really friends with the other Vault Hunters? Or are you just sticking around with them for kicks?" Blake asked. Zer0 was a bit of the odd man out when it came to the Vault Hunters, who all seemed chummy with each other while he was off to the side.
"We really are friends. I would give my life for them. Same goes for them too." He answered without hesitation. Sure, their personalities didn't exactly mesh together, but they would still fight and die together. They were his friends, and he would do anything for them. Sure, they didn't know too much about him, but they didn't care: they still stuck with him.
"That's pretty cool. Nice to see you have friends to look out for you." Blake replied, feeling good that she was getting more information out of him and getting a better feel for the assassin. He seemed like a cold and calculating killer, but there was a heart beating beneath that leather suit.
"The same goes for you. We all must have friends these days. It's safer that way."
"Agreed. Your turn."
Zer0 sat and pondered his question, wondering what he could possibly ask her. He could ask more about her past, about the world around him… possible employers. He finally asked "Favorite food?"
Blake blinked at the question and snorted, feeling like she was about to start laughing. Why would he ask such a ridiculous question? She inquired "Tuna. Why? Did you run out of questions?"
"Yeah."
"Fair enough. It was either that, or you're trying to get information out of me to date me."
That gave Zer0 a chuckle, since the notion of him dating was simply funny. He knew that dating would cause… complications in his line of work and he wasn't exactly looking to make something on a planet he wasn't intending to stay on. He explained "You're a nice girl, Blake. I am not looking to date. No offense to you."
"No offense taken. Not exactly looking to date either." Blake responded as she opened her book back up. She had no desire to really start dating, even with guys from her own world, let alone other worlds. There was that alluring air of mystery around him, but other than that she wasn't attracted to him. The two went back to reading quietly, happy for the break from the silence for some friendly chatting.
O00000O00000O
Maya was heading back to her room, wearing her new lounging clothes of a grey t-shirt and black sweatpants. It was much more comfortable than her combat attire, at least for the purpose of walking around Beacon. She was looking into more comics and a few books since she was going through her reading pretty quickly. She was almost to her room when she got a text from Jaune.
"Want to hang out today? Got a new game I think you'd like." She read, thinking that it was a bit interesting that he would ask her. She pondered it, since the two were starting to have similar interests with her getting introduced to the nerdier side of things. She shrugged as she started typing away.
"Sure. I'll give it a try. I'll head over." Maya replied as she headed over to Team JNPR's room. It was nice to spend time with people that weren't wanted for murder or fleeing corporate persecution. She got there quick enough since the rooms were close enough and she knocked. The tall redhead Pyrrha answered the door, wearing a white shirt and red short shorts with her long red hair free of its ponytail.
"Hello Maya, welcome to our room." Pyrrha greeted happily as she stepped aside to welcome Maya in. The room was the same dimensions as hers and Gaige's room, four beds and all lined up along the walls. There was a bookshelf under the window at the center of the room with a large glass TV in front of it. Jaune was wearing a black shirt and black shorts sitting on the bed in the back left of the room.
"Hey Maya. Ready to try this out?" Jaune greeted as he activated the TV. He took her scroll and hooked it up to the game. He explained "So this is a dungeon crawler where we're going to fight demons."
"Sounds fun. Thanks for inviting me." Maya replied as she grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to his bed. She looked back to see Pyrrha sitting at the desk that was to the left of the door with headphones on. Maya asked "So, Pyrrha not into video games?"
"Not really this type of game. She's not a fan of the gore and violence aspect of it."
"Fair enough. I've seen enough that it doesn't really affect me. I doubt I'll be very good at it." Maya chuckled as the title screen came up. The beginning cinematic came up when a random thought popped into her head and she asked out lout "Why did you invite me?"
"Because you're cool, plus I thought you'd like to play." Jaune responded after shrugging. He really did think that she was cool since she was one of the aliens with crazy guns and abilities. He wanted to be friends with them and know what they knew. What was their planet like? Were there other aliens? Plus he thought Maya was pretty. He went on "And you seem to like nerdy stuff."
"Fair enough. I do like the comics and stuff. Didn't get much of it back on Athenas or Pandora."
"You've been to other planets? That's cool!"
"Eh, not really. Athenas was like a prison to me. I was raised by an order of monks that were using me to keep the populace in check. Then Pandora was a living hell hole where every five steps something will try and kill you."
"Okay… that sounds… awful."
"It had its ups and downs. So far, Remnant has been the best planet. Good food, good people, and nerdy stuff." Maya replied with a smile as they started the actual game. She went on "Thanks for being friendly with me. I know it must be difficult."
"It's really not. Like I said, you're really cool and you're fun to hang out with." Jaune answered as they started playing and learning the ropes. The two had fun, the simple kind of fun that comes with playing a game with a friend.
O00000O00000O
Axton shuffled his way to the cafeteria for breakfast in a grey t-shirt with red and black plaid pajama pants. He was honestly pretty bored when it came to Beacon since there wasn't anything a mercenary could really do. He could have joined Salvador and Krieg when they went out into the woods to kill the Grimm for kicks, but that was like throwing baseballs at paper targets; not satisfying. He made it there, finding the place sparsely populated since it was the weekend and none of the students would be up so early. He grabbed his plate of bacon, eggs and toast with a glass of water when he spotted a non-uniformed Winter sitting alone reading her scroll.
"Morning beautiful." Axton announced as he sat across from her. She had her white hair down and flowing free with a light blue shirt and white shorts. Winter simply looked up at him with a small smile.
"Morning Axton. Should have known you'd find me." Winter chuckled as she closed her scroll. She had no doubt that she would see Axton again, and hear his continuous advances. Honestly, it was nice to hear since most men around her were either intimidated by her or were part of her chain of command. So she let him do it, even though she had no intention of returning such feelings. She did get the feeling that he didn't even really mean it since he wouldn't ever follow up on it, probably just for fun.
"Can't help it. I always seem to find myself around pretty women. So, what's got you sticking around, other than seeing my handsome mug?" Axton questioned before he started eating. Winter chuckled at that, which he thought was cute. She was a beautiful woman, and even more so when she smiled. He knew that he wasn't looking for something, but he could always have some fun on the side.
"I've been assigned protection for Dr. Asimov while he is working on the Vault Key Fragment. As long as he and the Fragment are here, I'll be here." Winter explained as she worked on her breakfast more.
"Well, might have to keep that Fragment here as long as I can. Get to see more of that lovely smile of yours."
"You're relentless."
"Gotta wear you down somehow."
Winter stared at him and started to laugh again since it was still funny on how persistent he was. She sipped her milk and went with some casual conversation. She questioned "So, what's with the brand on your forehead?"
"This thing? It's my rank. I was a Sergeant in the Dahl Corporate Military, 'til I got the ax." Axton replied as he reached up and ran a finger along the top of the chevron. It felt like a lifetime ago when he got the news that he was going to be executed. Lucky for him his commanding officer gave him the opportunity to escape, since she was his wife, well ex-wife, at the time. After that it was chasing bounties in the borderlands until he heard about the Vault on Pandora, and that was a story onto itself.
"Guess that's why we've been getting along. Both soldiers." She commented. She wasn't going to press anymore since his record was his business and not hers. She poked at her eggs before asking "Want to grab a beer tonight?"
"Damn, already wore you down? I'm in."
"Not as a date, as two soldiers grabbing a drink to relax. Share war stories and shoot the breeze."
"No one in your unit you can do that with?"
"They wouldn't. Apparently I'm very intimidating, but with you… all you see is a pretty face."
"I mean, I also see a great rack and an absolute badass. Plus, I'm just a Vault Hunter, so no ties to the Atlas Military. No regs against grabbing a drink with me."
"Exactly. Sound good?"
"Sounds good." Axton replied as he lifted his glass up to her, which she did the same and the two clinked glasses in agreement. The two went on with breakfast, happy to have a drinking buddy to let some well-deserved venting happen.
A/N: And there it is! A bit of filler but still some importance to the story. Apologies for the wait on this one. Getting involved in some projects that have been taking quite a bit of time. Regardless, PM or review with any thoughts, comments, or concerns. Until next time!