Chapter 4: Ominous Tides

Uh, I haven't uploaded in a while. My excuse is that I've got a job on top of everything else right now (it's really cool stuff, working with neural networks). Still though, I need to get better at writing consistently now that work's slowed down a little. I wish I could go back to the time where I could do weekly updates. I'll try to do that but it might end up being biweekly.

AWeirdReader and darkevix101: Thanks for the support. Honestly when I look back at my own writing I kind of cringe but as long as people are enjoying, I'll keep writing.

Also, YES PYRA AND MYTHRA IN SMASH BABY!

….

Brandon groaned as the alarms started ringing through the ship. Why did they have to be so loud? He just turned over and jammed his pillow against his ear trying to find a comfortable position. His shift didn't start until the salvagers brought the sunken ship up to the surface. Given how delicate the thing was, it would be easily two to three hours before they finish the structural reinforcement and find secure anchor points for the flotation devices.

He pulled out his phone to check the time, a piece of technology that should be long gone. The only reason he had one was because several salvagers had pulled up all sorts of different models from the cloud sea. He bought a few for relatively cheap, good thing they didn't know their value or purpose, and fixed them up, giving one to Rex and keeping a few for himself as spares. They still worked when in close proximity thanks to their internal routers, though that range barely extended from one side of Argentum to the other.

Ugh, it was four A.M. too, one of the worst times to be woken up. He yawned as he sat up, might as well get up and be on standby early instead of scrambling to get ready later.

He changed and walked out of his room. He was quickly forced to press himself against the wall as a team of salvagers jogged past him through the hallways on their way to the conference room.

Brandon on the other hand, walked in the opposite direction to get to the dining hall. He doubted there was anyone actually cooking right now but he could probably go to the kitchen to grab some food for a sandwich or something.

He sighed as he reached the dark room. Of course there were no lights on. He fumbled around in the dark for a minute looking for the light switch before finding it and flicking it on.

He heard something shatter and someone yelp from the kitchen. Well, it looks like someone had snuck in before him.

"You know you don't have to sneak around," he called as he walked in, his hand resting on his pistol, "it's not like you're going to get in trouble for wanting a late n- oh."

Standing there was a sheepish looking Nia with a massive fish in her mouth. He sighed in relief and dropped his hand.

"That's a little excessive for a late night snack," Brandon snorted.

Nia looked around for a new plate before dropping the fish onto it, "I was hungry."

"You could have at least turned on the lights. You nearly gave me a heart attack."

"Night vision."

"I know you have night vision," Brandon rolled his eyes, "but no one else does. Not like there are any other Gormotti aboard this ship. If you had left the lights on, no one would assume you were a stowaway. The other guards are more trigger happy than I am."

Nia scoffed, "if someone had shot at me, I could deflect it."

"Not likely," Brandon patted his holster, "every member of Argentum's security has one of these and they were designed by me. Top of the line guns from Mor Ardain fires bullets at a twentieth of the speed of gauss spikes with a fourth of the accuracy. Not to mention the power between acceleration with gunpowder versus electromagnetic forces."

"I understood about half of that, but message received. I'll keep that in mind if we ever work together again."

Brandon shrugged, "do you normally raid kitchens at night?"

"I could ask you the same thing," she said, going back to the fish she claimed, "it's not like you're patrollin' the kitchen."

"No," he sighed, "alarm woke me up and there's not much point in sleeping just to have to wake up again in an hour. You?"

"I've always been an early riser but I guess stress woke me up early today."

"So is that stress eating?"

Nia made a face, "maybe stress was the wrong word."

"Nervous?"

"Nothing to be nervous about," Nia shrugged.

Brandon sighed as he walked around looking for the right ingredients, "I wasn't referring to security. Even without the weapons aboard, you're a Driver. Not much that can hurt you. I was just saying in general."

"Again, nothing to be nervous about."

"If you say so," Brandon said, "just wanted to help."

"Nothing to help here," Nia shrugged.

The corner of Brandon's mouth tugged down for a second, "if you say so."

Nia rolled her eyes, "I may not look it but I am an adult. I- I'm twenty."

"You're twenty?" Brandon's jaw dropped, "you're a year older than me?"

She scowled, "just because I'm short doesn't mean I'm a child."

"I wasn't referring to your height I swear," Brandon said as he assembled his sandwich, "I'm As- from Leftheria after all. It's just your face makes you look a lot younger."

"How old did you think I was then?"

"I don't know. Sixteen?"

"Sixteen?" She said indignantly, "do I sound sixteen to you?"

"I guess not…" He took a bite of his quickly made sandwich as he considered what to say next, "listening to your voice alone, I would have assumed fourty."

"You bloody what?"

"Sorry, sorry," he laughed, "it was a joke. You do have a relatively deep voice though."

"What? You expect every young woman to go around with a voice high enough to shatter eardrums?"

"No, of course not," Brandon said, "but in case it wasn't obvious, I don't talk to many girls."

"What a surprise," Nia snarked.

"I was going to add on that I don't talk to many people in general outside of work," Brandon shrugged, "I'm not a people person in general."

"Oh, so the big bad mall cop is antisocial."

"Mall cop?" Brandon said, "huh, is that the vibe I give off?"

"It's a joke you bloody dimwit."

Brandon snorted, "your charm is shining through again."

"You're damn right it's part of my charm."

"What, you like insulting people?" Brandon rolled his eyes, "is it like a hobby or something?"

"Or something," Nia said.

Brandon rubbed his temple, "you're a real pleasure to work with."

"I…" Nia sighed, "honestly, I'm not so great with people either. I don't have many people I would consider friends."

"... I consider you a friend if that means anything," Brandon said.

Nia smiled, "it does. Really."

Brandon grinned, "good. Hey, by the way, we've been just standing around in the kitchen. You want to go out and actually sit down at a table?"

She blinked, "uh yeah. Let's do that."

"Oh right," Brandon pointed at the pieces of the broken plate on the ground, "you should probably take care of that first."

The pair were interrupted a little while later by Nia's Blade, Dromarch, coming to fetch her. He was as polite as the first time they met, in contrast to the almost permanently angry aura Nia gave off. He wondered how she got his core crystal. Obviously she wasn't his first Driver or his personality would more reflect hers.

The white tiger beast form blade gave him a polite nod, which he was sure would have been a bow were he a humanoid Blade, before leaving.

Brandon sat there for a few minutes longer, unable to find the will to actually stand up and get to work. He sighed before making an effort to get up and head back to his room. Without the rowdy teams of salvagers and maintenance workers all across the ship, it was eerily quiet. The only things he could really hear was the rain pattering on the side of the ship and the occasional claps of thunder.

It really made him want to go back to bed when he got back to his room. He resisted the temptation as he put on a poncho and tied an umbrella strap to his belt. He pulled out the small communicator he was given, Argentum's walkie talkie essentially.

"Hey guys, no crow's nest shift. Too dangerous out for that right now. Over."

"Got it boss," a voice crackled through, "what should I do instead then? Over."

"Keep your binoculars and just keep watch from the deck. I doubt there will be any pirates who would risk attacking this ship but just in case. Over."

"Roger that. Out."

Brandon stopped to consider what he really needed then decided to just screw it and take his entire backpack. He also strapped on the salvager's anchor that Rex had given him behind his wristband and secured it in place. How the kid wore this thing all day, he had no idea. The material made it so itchy.

He suspected that because there were drivers this time around, he wouldn't be called in to protect the salvager team as usual but who knows. Given how big this haul was supposed to be, there was a chance that there would be multiple teams, even though this expedition didn't call for as many salvagers this time around.

That was odd but it was the third party's request and they were paying well enough for it. Well he was as ready as he could be. He left his room and made his way up to the top deck to join the rest of the security team.

When he got to the top, he opened the door and was immediately blasted by frigid air and was pelted by rain. He raised an arm above his face as he fumbled with his umbrella and finally managed to unfurl it.

He looked around and spotted Nia who gave him a nod before returning to a conversation with who he was assuming were her coworkers. Two of them wore the same armor, though one was in white, one was in black. The third almost looked like a Xenomorph, almost certainly a blade, though to which driver, he couldn't tell.

Brandon walked over to his own coworkers, of which only two had come up early, and joined their conversation. The rest of his team slowly trickled up and joined their group.

Soon enough, an alarm started blaring, different to the wake up call. Brandon held onto the railing and peered over the edge to see a massive ship rise up from the surface of the Cloud Sea.

"Holy shit," Brandon breathed. The ship was massive, almost the size of the Maelstrom. It also didn't bear any kind of crest either, no identifying symbols at all and the designs weren't used by any nation in current day Alrest.

It was either a private ship or a ship that belonged to one of the dead nations from the long gone Titans. Assuming he could take Nia's word, it was the latter considering that the Aegis went missing around five hundred years ago.

If he remembered the legends correctly, the Aegis' driver was Tornan, so there was a good chance that this ship was an old Tornan warship.

Though… what kind of company was Nia working for? What kind of change were they trying to make with a legendary weapon? Why didn't he think about this until now? Was he morally obligated to put a stop to the salvaging operation?

Considering how much money the guild put into this expedition, he doubted he could put a stop to it without real proof of anything. Only he was told that they were trying to get the Aegis. Officially, they just wanted to search the ship for something important.

Of course he could be just being paranoid all of a sudden for no reason… well other than nervous tension.

"Everyone, we're moving to phase two!" The lead salvager called, "salvager teams! Get the draining equipment on board."

Brandon yawned. He didn't know that they had draining equipment but he supposed it made sense. The ship was still going to be waterlogged… cloudlogged? What's the right term here? Well, he was going to stick to waterlogged so his brain doesn't melt. Brandon noticed a distinct blue salvager suit on the deck of the recovered ship but didn't bother waving since vision was severely limited inside of the suit.

Brandon was content to just watch as Rex grabbed some gear and dove back down into the clouds below. When he first saw what Rex's scuba gear was, he was in disbelief. He was shocked that the diver was even able to breathe. But at this point, he was used to it and there was rarely a case of a salvager suit breaking down underwater, especially with how good the maintenance teams were at Argentum, and when there was a rupture or problem, each salvager was equipped with an emergency supply of oxygen which could last for up to twenty minutes, plenty of time to resurface.

There was the rare case of a suit breaking down within the confines of a sunken ship but those were never attempted by solo salvagers so the rest of the team supplied the downed salvager with their emergency supply and was able to get him up to the surface safely. There hasn't been a salvager accident fatality in decades, which all things considered, was very impressive.

Rex resurfaced pretty quickly afterwards.

"Phase three!" The lead salvager called as he waved over Brandon and his team. "I want your team to follow Spraine's," he said, addressing the security detail, "who knows what kind of aggressive sea life could have made this ship their home while this was underwater."

He held up a hand when they started leaving to follow orders, "except you Brandon. You're Rex's brother right?"

Brandon nodded in confirmation.

"I want you to follow him. Technically as an independent salvager, his contract is directly with the third party and not through the guild so his assignments are going to be given by said third party. I don't know what they're going to assign him to but you should go with him just in case."

"Thank you."

The salvager nodded before jogging over to join his own expedition team who were making their way down a flight of stairs on the side of the ship to a different entrance.

Brandon sighed as he walked over to Rex. He had no idea how to tell the dude that he had forgotten his name.

"Hey!" Rex waved from where he was in the center of the ship, "this thing's massive isn't it?"

"Yeah," Brandon said, "it's a really impressive feat of technology. How old do you think it is?"

"I don't know exactly," Rex said, rubbing his nose idly, "if I had to say, it's between five hundred to six hundred years old. It's definitely nothing like I've ever seen before."

Brandon raised an eyebrow, "how did you reason that one out?"

Rex pointed to the side of the ship, "it's a lot of different factors but the main things I look at are the amount of plant growth, how much the wood has rotted, and how much the metal's rusted."

"Huh. I didn't think about that," Brandon put a hand on his chin in thought.

"Oi you two!" A distinctly Welsh, or rather Gormotti, voice called, "what're you two doin' just standin' around and slackin' off?" Nia bantered as she walked up to the pair with Dromarch from the same direction Brandon came in.

Brandon snorted, "I'm doing my job, I'm protecting Rex. He's the one slacking off."

"Hey!" Rex complained, "I'm waiting for a job to do since we've brought the ship up to the surface."

"Well," Nia put her hands on her hips, "why don't you come with my crew? We need a Leftherian salvager anyways."

"Well, there's your third party orders," Brandon said.

"Yeah, I got it," Rex rolled his eyes, "I don't need you to reiterate everything that's been said right in front of me."

Brandon grinned, "well, who knows. I've seen you struggle with some basic arithmetic before."

Rex flushed, "one time!"

"And I'll never let you forget it!" Brandon cackled.

"I hate you."

"Nia!" Someone yelled. Brandon glanced over his shoulder to check who it was. It was the one in the black armor.

"Did you get a Leftherian salvager?"

"Yeah!" She called back, "right here!" She gestured for the pair to follow her as she walked over to the trio of Nia's crew. Brandon did a double take. He was just a little shorter than the man in the white armor, who now that he can see up close also was wearing a mask, but the other two were massive, both easily over two meters tall.

"Huh, so it's the kid," the man said before facing Brandon, "and you are?"

"Brandon Hunter, head of Argentum Security," he said, trying not to let his voice crack. The weapons on these people were no joke.

"Oh, so you're the one Nia went and bothered. I'll have to apologize on her behalf, she's a little headstrong."

"No harm no foul. I kept my job so she's fine." He said. Brandon would have complained a bit just to mess with Nia but the guy didn't exactly give off a super friendly vibe. He felt like he was being polite because he had to be polite rather than because he was.

"Alright then. I'm assuming you're assigned to the kid?"

"Yeah. I'm sure your team is more than enough but I can't let an independent salvager get hurt under contract without at least one of Argentum's own security."

The man nodded before turning around and heading towards the big set of metal double doors that led to the inside of the ship.

"Bloody arse," Nia muttered when she was sure he was out of hearing range, "apologize on my behalf? What a joke."

"Is he always like that?" Brandon asked.

"Malos? Yeah, he's not the nicest guy."

"His name is literally Malos?" Brandon sucked in air through his teeth, "his parents must have wanted him to be an edgy fucker."

"Hard to imagine him having parents," Rex chimed in, "maybe he was materialized fully grown."

Brandon laughed, "come on Rex, you can't just go around making jokes like that. Remember what Gramps constantly tells you? You have to respect your elders."

"Elders?" Nia snorted, then started laughing, Brandon and Rex joining in.

"Ahem," Dromarch cleared his throat, "while I am glad to see my lady getting along with more people, we still have a job to do."

"Yeah yeah. Let's get going."

Their small group walked over to join the rest of Nia's team who were busy inspecting the doors to see if they could find a way in. There were several dents in the metal to indicate that the massive blade had taken a few swings at it to no avail.

"What was the holdup?" Malos asked.

"Those doors," Rex said in response, "would be hard to brute force open the wrong way even with heavy machinery. They open outwards and without a handle, I think there was supposed to be a key to trigger some kind of system that would open the doors. The problem is with how rusty this old ship is, I doubt that system would still be operational. If you could-"

Rex was interrupted by a massive bang from the other side of the doors and something caused the old metal to dent outwards.

"And there's some of the aggressive sea life," Rex said as he drew his sword and hit the switch to unfold the blade out.

Brandon tilted his head, more in annoyance than anything else as he drew his pistol from his holster.

Most of the sea life in Alrest was pretty tame compared to some of the creatures that lived on the surface of the Titans. Though, even then, almost every single creature in Alrest was vicious when they wanted to be. The most dangerous animals on Earth barely compared to even basic wildlife here.

A second bang, the dent morphing into a larger bulge.

Still though, they were still animals and a high powered bullet to the head was almost always more than enough to take one out.

A third blow.

Brandon narrowed his eyes as he focused in, though still distinctly noticing the light and sound of Blade weapons powering up as the two drivers drew their weapons, a soft beam of light connecting the Core Crystal of each Blade to their respective drivers.

The man in white armor unslung the katana… no, the nodachi that was hung across his back.

Brandon tensed for a fourth hit to the doors but nothing came, disrupting the rhythm of the previous blows.

"What's going-" The doors were blasted off their hinges and went flying, Brandon barely managing to stumble out of the way before the door could take his head off.

He righted himself and fired off a round at the animal, a Lysaat if he wasn't mistaken. The gauss spike deflected off the armored hide of the creature with a sharp ping. Brandon cursed as he rolled out of the way of a sweeping mandible like appendage.

He repositioned and fired a second shot at the thing's leg, this time the spike piercing through and the creature let out a screech of pain allowing Rex to land a blow, cutting off a leg in the process, all the while, the heavier hitters that were the Drivers landed several sweeping blows across its flank, carving into the exoskeleton of the sea creature.

Somehow the man in white armor was doing just as much damage as the Drivers with a regular sword while neither Brandon nor Rex were able to do anything to the armored shell of it. Nia's company hires some insanely strong people.

Dromarch let out a sonic boom of a roar, pushing the creature away and it tilted upwards as it decelerated. Nia ran forward, taking advantage of the opening and slid underneath it, slashing her twin rings across it's underbelly before spinning and hopping back onto her feet and stabbing her blades through its hide. The man in white armor followed through and landed the finishing blow, sinking his sword deep into the creature's head.

"Whoa, you drivers really are something else," Rex panted.

"What did I tell you?" Brandon muttered.

"It was nothing, a walk in the park," Nia said.

"Do you know what that thing was?" Brandon said, "our weapons wouldn't do anything to its armor."

"Lethal Lysaat King," the man in white armor said, the first words Brandon heard him utter, "they're rare and the most dangerous of the Lysaat family. Be on your guard, there might be more of them."

Brandon nodded and pulled out his communicator as he slowly followed the group into the ship. "All security teams, be on guard for especially dangerous wildlife. Over."

"Roger that. Out."

Brandon shook his head. He'd better be more careful. If his reaction time was any slower, he'd be dead. He's also going to have to bring bigger guns with him when in a security detail. He had worked with Drivers in the past but nothing demonstrated the gap in skill and strength quite like this.

Though the white armored man seemed to be in a class of his own. Maybe he was a Driver and his Blade simply wasn't assigned here. That… would actually explain his enormous strength. But why separate a Driver and their Blade?

As they descended deeper into the ship, Rex turned on the flashlight he had on his belt and Brandon reached into his bag to fish out a headlamp and turned it on, the piece of modern technology far outshining Rex's old light.

"Hey!" Rex whined, "why don't I get one of those?"

"Because you'd probably blind yourself if I gave you one," Brandon said, "these things are powerful enough to set wood on fire if you set some close to it for long enough."

"Is that new technology?" Nia asked as she pulled back to walk beside the brothers.

"Well yeah, it's something I made myself."

"Then why didn't you sell these instead of weapons?"

"Because the materials to make these headlamps are really expensive. I'd have to sell them at over five hundred gold each just to break even. Also do I have to remind you that the weapons I sold are non-lethal. Only Argentum Security has anything of mine that is."

Nia shrugged, "whatever you say."

"I…" Brandon didn't know what to say and and uncomfortable silence fell on the group. Rex gave both of them a questioning stare but chose to leave them alone.

Nia eventually picked up her pace and joined her crew up in front.

"What was that about?" Rex asked when it seemed more appropriate, "were you two any more friendly I would have already started making wedding jokes."

"She doesn't like that I sold weapons."

"Neither did I but I didn't make a big fuss about it," Rex said, "but on the other hand, she doesn't exactly know your story like I do."

Technically, no one really knew his story. A relic of a long gone era of war and chaos. He wanted to say that it wasn't his fault he ended up on the path that he was, but that would be a lie. He may not have gone into engineering physics expecting to make tools of war but he did go into that field, regardless of his original plans.

It was either that or fighting since he didn't know anything else. Looks like he ended up doing both.

"You've got that somber look on your face again," Rex said, "I hope I didn't do that."

Brandon laughed, "and there's the Rex that worries more about strangers than himself. I'm fine… just some images that don't make sense to me." Brandon said hesitantly, still playing the part of an amnesiac.

Although… for some reason, he felt as though he could tell Nia about his past and she wouldn't bat an eye, something he hasn't even told Rex.

Then again, that illusion was dispelled by Nia's own actions. She didn't like war or weapons of war. Though he found that ironic since if her home nation ever went to war, Drivers would be the first drafted to fight.

Considering the last war only just ended a decade ago and the next one looked to be brewing in the corner, a lot of people would likely be dragged into a war they wanted no part in.

He was thankful that he was considered to be a citizen of Leftheria which was still an independent archipelago. Though who knew how long it would be until Mor Ardain turned their gaze onto the small cluster of Titans for land and resources.

Or maybe it would be Uraya that the archipelago would be captured by. Who knows. While there were a few smaller Titan nations left, it was really only Mor Ardain and Uraya that were the big country powers. Of course there was Indol acting like the Roman Catholic Church did in Earth's medieval era.

"I hope we can figure your past out soon," Rex said.

Brandon chuckled and ruffled Rex's hair, "honestly? At this point, my past doesn't matter. No matter what my memories are, my past life is long gone. This is what I have now and you've grown on me."

"Aw, that's-"

"Like a fungus."

"I hate you."

Brandon laughed. "I'm kidding. You know I love you like a brother."

"I hate to think of what you say to your actual siblings." Rex rolled his eyes.

"So would I since I'm an only child."

"You are? Do you remember anything else about your family?"

Brandon cursed mentally. He slipped up there. "A vague image of my parents. That's about all I can tell you."

"Damn. And here I was hoping I'd learn more about you."

"You already know plenty about me," Brandon said, "I don't know what more you could possibly want from me."

Rex shrugged, "anything really. I know your personality and skills but everything else is a mystery."

"I don't know," Brandon tilted his head, "what if I was a mass murderer in my past life and that pod was a prison?" Brandon winced, that actually wasn't a far off description if you looked at the war from the Coalition point of view.

He was probably labeled a terrorist on Earth.

Whatever. If he cared about what the Coalition government said, he wouldn't have been part of the rebellion.

"Then I'll do something about it. But I doubt you were. And even if you were, I don't think you would be able to do that again after not doing that for two years."

Brandon chuckled, "that's a very 'Rex response. I like it."

"What's a 'Rex' response?" Rex asked with a look.

"Naïve optimism," Brandon explained, "but in this case it's a good thing."

"Naïve? Isn't that usually a bad thing?"

"Well yes, but actually no."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means…" Brandon paused as they reached a staircase going down, the Drivers ahead of them already stopped at the foot of the stairs.

"Let's… shelve this discussion for now," he said to Rex. "What's going on?" He said more loudly to Nia's team.

"I think we're at the power room," Nia responded.

Rex stepped forward and glanced around the room before heading down to a Ether fuel chamber and hitting a button. Nothing. He gave the panel a good kick before hitting the button again and a rack slid out.

"We need some Ether cylinders," Rex said, "the Ether lines look undamaged so plugging in a new cylinder should restore power."

"Alright, you heard the kid," Malos said, "split up and look for a cylinder. We probably need one to get past these doors anyways."

Brandon walked over to Rex, "where would you say to look?"

"I don't know," Rex sighed but started walking towards a staircase anyways, "on a modern ship, spare cylinders would be stored close to the actual generator but half the designs on this ship don't make any sense… unless this was a warship in which case they make perfect sense. The only problem with that theory is that I didn't see any gun emplacements."

"Well, those doors at the top were heavy duty," Brandon said as they walked through the hallway.

"Yeah, most of the ship was armored. There were a few window that were busted in from the cloud pressure but otherwise, I think this thing could have taken a full broadside in its prime."

Brandon shook his head. 'Cloud pressure' just sounded wrong, though technically you could pressurize clouds since clouds were just water vapor, and water vapor was a gas… which can be pressurized.

"Hm, then maybe it was to protect something? We are here in search of something valuable."

"Yeah, that would make sense," Rex said as he knelt down and tapped a protrusion from the wall, "I wonder what it is exactly they're looking for. They're certainly paying well enough for it." He grabbed the end of his anchor and pulled a bit just to get the metal end into his grip and ran it along a seam before levering the old machine open.

"Okay, how did you do that?" Brandon asked as Rex pulled out an old Ether cylinder.

"Let's call it salvager's intuition," Rex smirked.

"You were just saying you didn't know where spares would be stored."

"I took a guess," Rex shrugged.

Brandon groaned, "are you really doing the 'a magician never reveals his secrets' thing but salvager?"

"Yes."

"And you say I'm annoying," Brandon rolled his eyes.

"You are," Rex pulled out the cylinder.

Brandon snorted, "I'm sorry? Want to go ask Gramps who's more annoying when this is over?"

"No thanks," Rex grinned as he walked back towards the Ether fuel chamber.

"You're only saying that because you know the answer will be you," Brandon laughed as he ruffled Rex's hair, "learn how to think decisions through a little more carefully, would you?"

"Says the one who decides to fight pirates head on."

"Hey, how many times do I have to tell you? The best defense is a good offense. You see, they can't raid our ship if we're raiding theirs."

Rex shook his head as they reached the fuel chamber. "How did you get your position as head of security?" Rex asked as he plugged in the cylinder. An orange glow emanated from the source as Ether ran through the power lines and lit the room up. The control panel in the center of the room glowed as power ran through it for the first time in hundreds of years.

Brandon whistled, Rex's earlier comment ignored, "this is seriously impressive technology for it to not have eroded over centuries of being under the sea."

Rex hummed in agreement. His head perked up and waved over at someone Brandon couldn't see.

"Nice work," Nia said, being the first to rejoin the two.

"It was nothing," Rex said, "once you've been salvaging as long as I have, you pick up a thing or three." Rex walked up to the control panel and inspected it for a second before hitting the button to open the doors in front of them. They let out a hiss and a low rumble as they opened up slowly.

"That's-" Rex's eyes bulged and he immediately hit the button again, causing the doors to stop and close again.

Brandon tilted his head in annoyance as he drew his pistol. That was a massive Aligo waiting on the other side of those doors.

Beside him, both Rex and Nia drew their own respective weapons and readied up to fight.

"Welp," Brandon sighed, "here we go again."

….

It's been a while since I've worked on this so I'm going to go back and touch up on the older chapters since I got some advice on a few things (I might completely rewrite the old chapters and revise this one just to make sure I don't leave any plot holes this early on). I need to fix my tenses and add more descriptions for characters and setting.

Apparently there's almost nothing on how Brandon looks which is a complete oversight. The difficult part will be how I'm going to add his description into the story organically instead of just listing his description.