Ruby charged at the door, slamming her shoulder into it and shattering the sheet of ice that had formed over it. The door itself busted open, the latch flying apart and scattering across the hallway and down the stairs. Ruby promptly lost her footing and slid face first into the railing overlooking the stairs. She held on to the railing, doing her best and failing to keep on her feet. Dropping to her knees and clutching to the railing, she looked back into the room where Neo was fiddling with her parasol, rolling it back and forth to try and free it from the ice without damaging it. Eventually, she just stomped on the ice next to her weapon, cracking it. It was much easier to retrieve her weapon after that, though some ice was still stuck to it. She smacked it a few times to loosen up the inner machinations and pressed a button, causing a sharp point to stick out of the end. Neo smiled, causing Ruby to feel somewhat uneasy. This woman had threatened her with that very point in the past, and Ruby was only barely less helpless this time. If Neo decided to off her, there wasn't much she could do to stop her, and there was no wind to carry her off either.
Ruby let out a sigh of relief when she saw Neo was just using it to stab into the ground, breaking up the ice as well as keeping herself steady. Ruby found herself laughing a little at the wild imagination she had, thinking that the only other person around would just try to kill her with no guarantee of being able to survive afterwards, to say nothing of Ruby having saved her life at least twice already. Meanwhile, Neo was having her own difficulties with the iced floors. Breaking the ice up helped some, but it was still just that, ice. She stabbed the end of her weapon into the floor and leaned down to pick up Crescent Rose, since she knew Ruby would need it. The moment she shifted her weight to start lifting the heavy sniper scythe, however, her feet disappeared out from under her and she fell face first onto the solid and cold floor. Ruby was pretty sure she heard a pained yelp when Neo fell, but it might have been her own instinctual reaction to the painful impact.
Neo let go of Hush and pushed herself over, rolling onto her back. She reached up to her face and dabbed her nose with her hand, pulling away to find that she was indeed bleeding. She definitely was not happy about that, but it told of a deeper problem. She had intended to put up her defensive aura, she was sure of it. Why, if she'd put her defensive aura up, had nothing prevented the bloodied nose she was now suffering? Something must have drained her aura significantly enough that either the fall had broken it, or it had already been broken. She considered that the cold might have been draining her aura. If that was the case, she'd have to ask Ruby if the same was happening to her. She pulled out her notepad and wrote down the question, then struggled to flip herself over again and slide the notepad over to Ruby.
"My aura is down. How is yours?"
Ruby looked up in shock, seeing the blood dripping down Neo's face. It wasn't really that much, but it was a problem. Ruby raised her foot, clinging to the railing for stability, and brought her heel down on the icy floor, smashing the coating of ice. She then dug her heel in and pushed it along the floor, scraping off bits of ice to create a foothold for herself. She tested the friction for a moment, and once she'd determined that she finally had a stable place to stand, she got up onto her feet and started kicking at the ice around her, slowly making a path toward Neo that she could actually walk on.
Neo waited, laying down on the iced floor, for Ruby to reach her. Once Ruby was close enough, Neo felt the girl's strong arms pick her up and lift her to safety, where Ruby laid Neo out across her legs. She took a moment to reach around them, gathering their things. Crescent Rose was laid down next to them, Hush was handed to Neo, and then she grabbed the notepad off the floor. Without thinking, Ruby went to put the notepad where it had been stored up till now, causing Neo to have to bat her away from stuffing stuffing it down the front of her coat.
Ruby held up her hands, letting Neo take the notepad for herself. She rubbed the back of her head nervously. "Sorry, sorry, I just... uh, here, let me help with your nose." Again, without thinking, Ruby went in, moving to dab at Neo's nose with her sleeve. Neo didn't help the situation by trying to get free of Ruby's grasp, and ended up slamming her nose into Ruby's hand, resulting in a fresh gush of blood that didn't need to happen. Ruby gasped and held her hands up, away from the feisty and angry small woman who was now clutching her face in pain and glaring death at her. "Oh no, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to- ack! Sorry!"
Poor Neo felt like her face was on fire, and she was starting to wonder if there was any risk of her blood freezing and blocking up her nose. That was not a popsicle she wanted to experience. As much as it hurt to touch her nose, she pinched it closed with one hand to try and stop the blood flow, then shot her best glare at Ruby. In fact, it was really her fault, so Neo raised her free hand and gave Ruby a slap across the face. Ruby sat there stunned, pretty sure her cheek was turning bright red. She'd tried to help and had only made things worse. So she stopped, instead choosing to sit and wait until Neo had finished dealing with it herself. It was a few minutes before she had her nose under control, or at least gave up trying to control it.
It was quiet, while Ruby waited for Neo to settle down, quiet enough that she was able to listen to the silence all around them. There was the low howl of wind coming in through the open window in the room down the hall, the creaking of the frozen floor beneath them, and the sounds of struggle from Neo. Ruby closed her eyes and listened to those sounds, mixing with her own heartbeat. There was nothing else in the world. No humming of electric power, no hint of people or machines outside, no birds or animals. Nothing was out there.
Drip... drip... drip...
Ruby's eyes shot open. Her eyes darted back and forth, her head suddenly on a swivel as she tried to determine where she'd heard the dripping sound from. She'd been very distracted from it, but the thought of it reminded her that she was starting to get very thirsty. Any hint of drinkable liquid sent a shock through her brain as her body started to cry out for something it had been quietly waiting for until now. She needed fluids, and no doubt Neo did too. After a few seconds, however, during which Neo had picked up on her sudden alertness, Ruby realized she couldn't hear it anymore. She closed her eyes, listening to it, trying to sort out everything she heard to find where that sound had come from, but it was gone. She was drawn back to reality by Neo, tapping the notepad against her cheek. Ruby opened her eyes, letting out a defeated sigh as she read the message Neo had written.
"What are we doing now?"
Well, that was simple enough to answer. "We should get up, first of all." Neo rolled her eyes at Ruby's response. "If you want, I could carry you downstairs." Neo relented, getting up, and pushing Ruby over onto her back in doing so. Ruby let herself lay there for a moment before getting up herself. She picked up Crescent Rose and followed Neo out into the hall, where they both peered over the railing and down the stairs to the floor below. Ruby rubbed her sleeve against the railing, watching flakes of ice chip off and fall below. "You wanna go slow or take our chances on the stairs?"
Far from impressed by the idea of braving the slippery stairs, Neo just flipped open her notepad and, without even writing something, pointed at the previous thing she'd written. The one about her aura being down. Ruby looked away. This wasn't a good situation, and she knew it. If Neo's aura was down, something must have caused it, and the only thing they'd dealt with recently enough to be responsible was the flash freeze, but even that had been maybe an hour or two ago. Ruby wasn't exactly able to keep time without a clock. Time seemed to move slowly when they had been sitting alone and huddling for warmth, so perhaps it hadn't been as long as she thought. Even then, for it to have sapped their aura...
No... Ruby was well trained with her aura, she never forgot to put it up. It was reflex for her when her adrenaline was high, which it certainly had been when they were running for their lives from the freezing air. She absently held her hand to her throat, which was still a long way from fully recovering from inhaling the frigid air. Her aura hadn't protected her then either. Her aura hadn't protected her from anything since she woke up.
"I think... we have to face the fact that our auras may be gone. For now or for good, I don't know, but they're gone." Neo gave her a horrified look, which quickly turned to one of clear disbelief. Ruby shook her head. "Whatever is happening, our auras are gone. The defensive aura, at least. It's strange, I know we both used our semblance already, but when it came to protecting us our auras were just... not there."
So then it was true. Their auras weren't responding. That could easily turn the somewhat comical image of them trying to make their way down the icy stairs into a matter of life and death, with one possible outcome being a pair of broken necks. Ruby leaned over the railing, once again looking down the stairs, looking for any inspiration on how to speed up the process. They needed to make their way down there. The faster, the better, as she was now keenly aware of her growing need for water. Neo must have been in even more dire need, considering the state she'd been in when Ruby found her, unless she had managed to find something to drink in the kitchen before Ruby woke up. Anything that was in there before would most certainly be frozen solid now.
"We need something to drink, or nothing else is going to matter."
Neo nodded thoughtfully, then started writing in her notepad again, leaning on the railing to support the pad. The air was split by the harsh sound of a loud crack, and both of them froze. There was a second where nothing moved, both of them too scared to try anything, then the railing shattered, dropping them over the edge and onto the stairs. Ruby flailed her arms in the air, falling down and landing on the stairs with a crash as ice and steps shattered, and Ruby was pretty sure something inside her also broke. The staircase collapsed under the impact, turning their world into a tangled mess of icy shards, wooden splinters, bruised limbs, and quite possibly a cracked rib or two.
Drip... drip... drip...
When Ruby came to, she was laying on her back in the hallway. She couldn't have climbed out of the wrecked staircase on her own, so Neo must have pulled her out. Holding her hand up to her forehead, she wiped away sweat and, for a second, didn't even think about it. Then she held her arm up over her, looking over it. Something was definitely wrong. Unless Neo had gone and taken off most of Ruby's clothes, there was no way she should suddenly be down to just her undershirt and a pair of pants. She sat up, looking down at her feet. Her toes wiggled freely in the cold air. No... no, not cold. Warm air. Ruby looked around in alarm. This was the same house, the stairs were even still ruined, but the ice was gone, and the temperature had to be well near tropical.
Neo appeared from the kitchen, limping over quietly and plopping down back to back with Ruby wearing a pair of jeans that looked recently cut into short shorts and a pink t-shirt. Ruby could feel her companion sweating through both their clothes. She didn't know how long she'd been out, but things had changed drastically, and if it was going to reach anywhere near the same level of extreme... Ruby was not looking forward to deadly heat so soon.
She leaned back, resting her head on Neo's shoulder. "Hey... we should get out of the house."