It didn't take long for Raven to find a power conduit and tear the wiring out. Ruby pulled her feet out of the water just in time, but quickly realized it wasn't necessary. As soon as the connection was completely severed, the electricity stopped flowing. She settled back down and lowered herself into the water at the bottom of the tall generator maintenance shaft. Looking up, she saw that whatever they'd just cut had no bearing on the workings of the generator. It seemed to just be an automated hatch for ease of access. Now that it was flooded, all it did was short out and open and close rapidly. That problem removed, it went quiet just like they'd hoped.

"Fantastic." Raven stated rather blankly. She crouched down in the water and worked her fingers into the shut hatch, prying it open for good. "There. Now we have a space with constant new air coming in."

"Okay, so we go get the others, right?"

"You can if you want. Be sure to let them know not to get crushed to death by the generator."

"Oh yeah, that..." Ruby thought about it for a moment, then decided "Yeah, I'll just take them back to the other spot first and tell them. Anyway, get out of the way so I can go get them."

"Take a deep breath first. It's a long swim."

"Yes, mom." Ruby said sarcastically, then dropped into the water below, coming out of the generator just as the piston moved away. She pushed off the side of the generator with her feet and swam away.

Looking back, she saw Raven leaving and swimming straight down. Turning upwards, Ruby pulled herself through the water with wide strokes of her arms, making her way up dozens of feet to their original checkpoint. When she was about to head in, she saw something that looked a little curious up above. She still needed more air if she was going to check that out, so she swam up into the small room and took a deep breath, noting briefly that no one else was there at that moment. Diving back in, she swam up towards the top of the tower. As she approached, she could see that things were clearly getting worse outside. A white layer of solid ice had formed across the hole in the roof, blocking them off from any escape. Thinking about it, she felt that she probably didn't want to go outside right now anyway, if it was now cold enough to freeze over the water that had previously kept the tower free of snow entirely.

She headed back down and into the checkpoint room, climbing out and laying down on the floor, facing up at the ceiling. "Geez, how are we supposed to fight a monster down here."

Neo appeared over her, smiling down at her. She blinked, and her eyes changed from brown to pink. "Well, for one, we currently have the advantage of taking our time to choose our angle of attack."

"Yeah, but how long does that last? The roof is frozen now, so if the eel thing comes out and hunts for us, we can't escape now." She saw Neo frown. Clearly she hadn't realized the roof was icing over. To try and keep her from worrying, Ruby reached up and cupped Neo's face in her hands. She sat up, closing the distance between them, and gave her a quick kiss. When she was done, Ruby reassured her quietly. "Well, we do have a lot more options, since there are four of us now. Every second more that we have, we learn more about our surroundings. That is incredibly helpful for us right now."

"That's nice. By the way, I found something you're either going to like or hate." Neo stepped away, and Ruby followed her with her eyes. At the other end of the room, Neo picked up a pair of what looked like wetsuits. There was a third one on the floor, and three oxygen tanks resting next to them. Neo grinned. "No harpoon guns, but I think we're ready for some underwater combat."

Standing up, Ruby joined her and picked up the third wetsuit. "This is... something. Okay, let's give it a go." She didn't need to ask where Neo found them. She really didn't care or want to know, but she suspected there was a weird reason why it made sense, and if it was really interesting, Neo would tell her anyway. She didn't have to wait long.

"I noticed in the schematics that the bottom of the tower is usually full of water anyway, I guess for cooling it down. So I thought, to fix things and for upkeep, right? There'd probably be diving gear or something."

"I would have assumed that if it needed water to cool it, the water would get too hot to swim in." Though, Ruby supposed, if the generator was shut down first, that would make sense. Yes, she decided, that was probably it. "Okay, well, help me get in this though."

While Neo helped Ruby get into the rubbery suit, she explained her thoughts on the matter of heat. "You'd maybe be right if it was standing water, but I found where water runs into the generator and flows out. I think it still definitely gets hotter down there, but since there's more water in the tower now, the heat diffuses even more. We should be fine."

"Uh, okay, I guess." They stopped talking for a bit in order for Ruby to help Neo into her own wetsuit. Miraculously, both suits fit their small figures quite well. Neo was about to adjust her breasts to make them fit better before zipping up the front of her suit when Ruby stuck her hands inside the suit. "Here, let me do that for you."

Neo stuck her hand on Ruby's face and pushed her away, though not with enough force to actually drive her away. "We're about to go into battle and you're acting like this. How did your team deal with your being so handsy?"

"Easy, I wasn't handsy with them." Ruby worked her hands around, pressing Neo's breasts up and fondling them quite energetically until Neo finally reciprocated. Neo's wetsuit fell open, and she pushed Ruby down onto her back. Ruby let out an "Oof." in response, but put her hands on Neo's hips and pulled her down on top of her. "But handsy sounds good right about now."

Neo leaned down, her own hands slithering their way into Ruby's suit, pulling it open and taking two handfuls of Ruby's chest. Grabbing the back of Neo's head, Ruby pulled her into a longer, deeper kiss than before. Whatever it was, it was definitely more than she'd been expecting from a simple kiss, with Neo's hands caressing her slowly, rhythmically, and the sensation of Neo's lips on hers, she almost felt like she would pass out if this continued. But she didn't pass out, and this brief dream kept going. She felt certain parts of her getting harder, and other parts getting softer. She got the sense it was about to go even further, when something caught her eye. As Neo reared back, and Ruby's hands found her ample breasts, Ruby was stopped short by the sight of her left hand.

That was right. It was still mechanical. A replacement, donated from Penny's own body. She couldn't really feel Neo's body with that hand. Her brain was interpreting pressure signals sent to it from the sensors on the metal arm. She drew the hand back, laying it down alongside her and resting her head on the floor, letting out a sad sigh. She would never be able to fully interact with Neo in this way, so long as she was so blatantly part machine. Maybe, somehow, she would be able to forget that her arm was gone, her real arm, and treat the replacement as her own one day, if she could get one that looked real. But right now, it felt like she might as well be prodding Neo from a distance with a broom.

Sitting on top of her, Neo rested her hands on either side of Ruby's head and leaned over her, staring into Ruby's lost and wandering eyes. "Ruby..." She could see what the problem was easily enough, so asking was a waste of time. She offered another kiss, which Ruby quietly accepted, then offered her thoughts. "You don't have to let that stop you. We are together right now. We'll be together later, and together, we'll find our way out of this. I will treasure as much of you as I can have, so don't let a little piece stop you from giving me everything if that's what you want to do."

Putting her hand, her real, human hand, on Neo's shoulder, rubbing her thumb gently in a circle on Neo's skin. "I appreciate what you're trying to say. I do. But I want to wrap you in my arms and feel your warmth, without you having to feel this cold thing. I want to be as warm as you are."

Smiling mischievously, Neo lowered her head down onto Ruby's chest. "Oh, I don't think you have to worry about that. Remember who you're talking to. I'm the one with the intelligence and the bigger tits. You're the one with the warmth, as well as admittedly just a little bit taller."

"I may accidentally strangle you in your sleep." They shared a short laugh, which ended with a shiver running up Ruby's spine at the touch of Neo's tongue on her skin. "Okay, I give. I love you." That didn't seem to convince Neo to stop, however, and she started taking in her fill of Ruby's breasts with her mouth, coaxing several moans and increasingly breathless cries from Ruby. As much as she wanted to let it continue, however, she put her hand, her real hand, on Neo's head. "Okay, okay... that's enough for now... there's... going to be plenty of time later."

Neo sat up, looking at Ruby's face to try and figure out what she was feeling. "There will be a 'later' for us, right? You know that?"

"Yeah." She didn't know that. "It'll be fine." She didn't think it would be fine. "It's just another monster." It wasn't just another monster. It was a colossal eel that made its own Dust. "Besides, if it could kill us just by electrifying the water, it would have done that already." That part seemed more reasonable, until Ruby said it out loud. She sat up, suddenly alarmed. "It's making a lot of electric Dust, why hasn't it used any on us?"

Sliding her wetsuit back up over her shoulders, Neo cocked her head to the side awkwardly. "Uhh, I thought that was obvious. The electric Dust is being used for the generator. The electric power is channeled right into the eel. It must be able to keep it from escaping out into the water somehow."

"But why would it do that, specifically? What would keep it drawing all that power exclusively into itself, unless it..." Ruby gasped when it hit her. "It needs that power." She turned to Neo suddenly, causing the small woman to jump and zip her wetsuit all the way up to her neck, choking herself slightly. Ruby, too stricken by her realization, didn't notice, putting her hands on Neo's shoulders and shaking her in excitement. "It needs all of that power, you see? It's barely able to keep up the power levels it's getting with all that Dust it's feeding into the generator. If we cut it off from the power, it will have to move!"

"If that's true, and we cut it off from its power source-" Neo broke free, knocking Ruby's hands away from her. "Stop. If we cut it off, won't it be angry? Won't that put us in serious danger then?"

"Maybe." Ruby nodded. Just when Neo was about to exclaim that that made it a bad plan, Ruby added, "Which is why we set a trap for it. All we have to do is shut down the generator. The power goes out, the eel comes out to play, and that's when we..."

Neo was momentarily excited for the prospect of pulling one over on the giant eel, but that excitement disappeared when Ruby trailed off. "...we what?"

"We... we do, uh... you know, the thing!"

"Attack?"

"That's the one. That's the word."

"Has anyone ever told you you're insufferable?"

"What? What the fuck?"