The eel was disintegrating, turning into fragments of Dust that floated away and dissolved in the water. The resulting trails of rainbow colors were beautiful, but increasingly deadly. Any misstep now had the potential to set it all off and blow the whole tower to kingdom come. Over time, the Dust would settle to the bottom again and be swept away by the current going through the below ground part of the tower, but there was no way to know how long they would be waiting for that. Shutting off power should speed up the process, but they already did that during their battle with the eel. They would turn it back on when they actually needed the power again, just before they left the tower.

Confirming that the process of Dust clearing away at the bottom of the tower had already started, Penny turned back and swam up to the air pocket they had been using as their rally point. She popped her head out of the water and climbed up beside Raven and Ruby. "The water should start draining out of the tower now. It will be difficult to get out the way we came in once that happens, though."

"That's okay. There are actual doors we can access then." Ruby said, optimistically giving a thumbs up with her flesh and bone hand. "And once it's all drained out, we can go ahead and restart the power plant, right?"

"W-" Neo started to answer, but something caught in her throat and she broke into a coughing fit. Ruby rushed over to her and patted her back, trying her best to help without really knowing how. It finally settled down, and Neo managed to rasp out a few words. "We shouldn't wait too long." She went back to clearing her throat as best she could, leaving the others to discuss without her.

Weiss, who was new to this assembly, looked over their allies. "I have no idea how we wound up in this situation, but I assume everything has gone really wrong if we're working with Raven and Neo." She motioned to Penny. "And you look like you've had a really rough time."

"Yeah, Penny's the only one who's had it rough." Ruby snarked, waving her borrowed arm. "You didn't even ask, just saying."

Granting that, Weiss shrugged as if to say that it wasn't so bad. "A robot arm is a good look for you. At least you still have most of your skin. Penny's literally a skeleton at this point."

"Yeah, okay, that's fair, I guess, if you want to put it that way. By the way, where the hell did you come from?"

"Oh, uh, Neo pulled me out of the eel, I think." The others all looked to Neo for an explanation, and she shook her head, pointing to her throat. Weiss groaned. "Really? You just talked."

Ruby was concerned, but also curious. "She's been talking for a while. That's not good, if she's lost the ability to speak again."

"I like her better this way." Neo promptly gave Raven the middle finger in response to the unwanted comment. Raven put her hands on her hips. "So she found you inside one of the eels. It's a surprise you're still alive, all things considered."

"Yeah, what was that thing?" Weiss looked around her for answers.

Ruby was preoccupied tending to Neo, so Raven did her best to answer. "From what we've seen, there aren't very many people still alive on Remnant. We actually haven't been able to find anyone other than the five of us."

"But we think we have a good idea of where everyone went." Penny added. "Ruby and Neo have run into some monsters, much like the eel monster we just defeated. I saw one from a distance when we were on top of the tower, but this was the first one I've fought."

"Hold on." Ruby put a stop to the conversation. "I'll get Neo to the control panel over here so she can communicate. We've been using a paper pad when it was necessary, but when we came down here we left all our clothes on top of the tower, and the paper pad was with our clothes, so this will have to do."

Neo looked to be having difficulty walking as well as speaking, and it actually looked like her voice was completely gone now. The sudden change had clearly drained her of her strength, but it wasn't exactly clear how or why. Ruby powered up the control panel and found a virtual keyboard Neo could use, stepping aside so that Neo could write what she needed to. It took a moment, during which everyone else was silent, watching as she wrote her explanation. While they were all waiting, Raven went and sat down with her feet in the water, Ruby watched over Neo's shoulder as she was writing, and Weiss just stood there casually fidgeting. She wasn't all that comfortable with how naked she was in front of the others, but no one seemed to really have a problem with it. She felt her hair was starting to dry some, so she ran her fingers through it to air it out and speed up the process. Speckles and sparkles of Dust fell from her hair. She figured there was probably a lot of Dust covering all of them right now, since it had been billowing up and swirling around the water they were all swimming in.

Ruby snapped her fingers to get everyone's attention. "She finished." Neo stepped aside, and Ruby began reading off what she'd written so the others could hear. "One of the eel heads ate me and I was trapped inside its mouth. I found Weiss there. She was attached to it, like the other people we've found before were, but it hadn't absorbed her yet. I cut her free and brought her back here. I don't know how she wasn't drowned or how she survived being a part of that monster, but she's here now."

"Right, I'm here now. So now what?"

"Well we start with getting out of here." Raven said, standing up. "The water just got down past our level. Let's get down there." Without waiting, she jumped down the hole into the water.

Approaching the entrance to their air pocket, Ruby was able to see that the water really was draining out fast. She jumped in without a second thought, finding that it would only be a few seconds before she couldn't reach back up and pull herself in again. She called up to the others. "Hurry up! If the water is draining out at this rate, we need to get over to the tower wall and grab onto something so we don't get sucked down the middle."

"You make a compelling argument." Weiss said, jumping in after her.

Penny joined them a second later, diving down below the surface, and Neo dropped in last. Together, they made their way over to the edge of the tower, where Raven was hanging on to one of the large Dust pipes. Ruby grabbed onto the pipe next to Raven, and Neo latched onto her. There wasn't another pipe near them, so Weiss grabbed onto Raven for support. As the water slowly drained out of the tower, they kept up by climbing down the pipes at the same pace. The water was warm, but the cold air was coming in from above them, and being wet and cold was having an effect on them. Staying in the warm water was starting to feel like a necessity, at least until they realized the heat was diffusing through less water, and as a result the temperature of the water was increasing. They wouldn't be able to stay in it for much longer without boiling themselves alive.

Raven stopped climbing down, looking around for any way to escape the cold air. "Okay, we need to make a choice. Freeze to death or boil to death. Those are our options."

"No they aren't." Ruby pointed out. "Raven, you can still get us all out of here."

"Wha... Well, I can, but we have no idea where we'll end up, and there's no way to get back."

"At this point, I think that's worth the risk." Ruby said, looking up pointedly and drawing everyone's attention to the creep of white coming down the walls of the tower. "And this time we're practically naked. Someone of us are actually naked."

"Thanks for reminding me." Weiss grumbled.

Raven looked around for a second longer, dropping down into the hot water again. "It's really hot in here. We have to go... But Penny's replacement parts! The vault!"

"There's no time! We have to get out of here!"

"Agh! Fine!" Probably fed up with the scalding water she was waist-deep in and the freezing air coming down and turning water droplets to ice crystals in her hair, Raven swiped her hand behind her, opening a swirling red portal. "I hope Summer is ready for houseguests. Weiss, jump!"

Weiss pushed off of Raven and dove through the portal, disappearing inside. Giving her only a second to get out of the way, Raven jumped through as well. The portal was a bit too far away for Neo to jump directly to it, so she reached over and grabbed onto the pipe Raven had been hanging from. Making sure she knew where she was going, she checked behind her and jumped. Just as she pushed off, the portal collapsed. Neo fell into the water, landing on a small computer tower that was only a couple feet below the water.

Ruby could see her friend in pain in the hot water, but there wasn't anything she could do about it, even less now that the portal was gone. Weiss and Raven had made it out, but she and Neo were still trapped here. "Penny! Help Neo!"

Popping out of the water right next to Neo, Penny reached out and grabbed her arm. "I can do something, but it will hurt. It will protect you from the temperature some, though. Just hold on." It took nearly all the strength Neo had left to acknowledge Penny's offer. Taking that as permission, Penny channeled her powers into Neo, and a coat of ice formed around Neo, encasing her entirely. She looked back up to Ruby. "Hurry and jump in! I'll do the same for you and pull you both to safety!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa..." Ruby was not happy about this plan, but she had nothing better. "Okay, catch me!" She jumped.

Swimming over to Ruby, Penny acted quickly to encase her in a protective shell of ice. Taking hold of the frozen Ruby, Penny swam her over to the open door to the entrance of the power plant, guiding her into the darkness and stowing her behind some piping and equipment to keep the water current from dragging her out when the room drained. The ice would also melt pretty quickly, so she needed to get Neo and bring her in too. Darting out, she clamored up and pulled Neo's icy prison down into the water, using a bit of her power to replenish the melting ice before pulling her to the front of the building as well. Once she had them both safely in the dark weird world of the previously sealed entry area, she went and closed the door as much as she could. Using more of her power, she cooled down the water and simultaneously melted the shells around Ruby and Neo just as the water started draining out at the top.

Freezing cold, and running out of air, Ruby and Neo swam up and took gaping breaths of the cold air flooding in. Penny stopped trying to cool the water, instead letting it warm the air for them, but when the water had gone down to about shoulder height for her and Ruby, she grabbed the doors and pulled them shut, sealing them and stopping the water from draining out. It was suddenly pitch black, except for the green lights coming off of Penny's body. She held her hand up above the surface of the water and lit a fire in her palm, lighting the room up.

Ruby spat water out of her mouth and looked around at the newly lit room, seeing the things swimming around and lurking in the darkness below the water. "Well... this is a new one. At least there isn't really enough room here for another monster to get us."

"Yes, and the water is warm enough to keep us alive in spite of the weather outside." Penny added. "And if we get hungry, we can taste something that no one else has ever eaten." She smiled, only succeeding in looking unhinged.

Neo, who wasn't able to keep her mouth out of the water, climbed up on Ruby's back. Ruby sighed, resigned to that situation, and look around for something that could help them take their next step. "Is it possible to turn the power plant on from in here, or do we have to wait for another thaw?"

"I hate to be a conservationist in this situation, but I'm kind of concerned about letting this place drain completely. These animals probably don't exist anywhere else in the universe at this point."

"Yeah, about that. How have they evolved separately from the rest of the world? It seems like they've spent a totally different amount of time in here than went by outside, and you and Raven have clearly been here for different amounts of time. What the hell is going on with time right now?"

"That does sound like a good question. Let's hope we don't evolve while we wait for the weather to change. Then maybe we can look for answers."

"Right..." Ruby looked over her shoulder to Neo. "Does that sound good to you?" Neo lightly headbutted Ruby, who gave a little 'oof' in response. She looked back to Penny. "So we turn the tower on, go to the vault, and then head up to Atlas. Maybe there are answers there, or someone with answers."

"Agreed."

"I just hope Weiss and Raven are safe."

"Also agreed."

"...if I look down right now, I just know I'm going to see something freaky and I will lose my mind. I'm not as concerned about conservation as you are."

"I understand."