"So without draining this room..." Ruby looked over the old grime-covered machinery dimly lit by Penny's fire. "Is there a way to turn on the generator?"

Penny whirred irately, then answered. "Technically, yes, it is possible, but the power plant is all frozen outside this room. Forcing it on might damage it."

"Yeah... then where would we be?" Ruby sighed, shaking her head. She felt Neo shift on her back, burying her face into Ruby's neck. They had to wait again. She hated the waiting part, largely because it preceded another monster appearing. This time was different, of course, since they had Penny with them. Penny being there meant she had someone to talk to who could talk to her as well. A real conversation, like she'd wanted. All the things they could talk about.

She couldn't think of anything to say. It didn't help that Penny looked nothing like her old self. It felt awkward talking to a decrepit machine, even if it was a dear friend. It was even hard to think of her as a her while she looked like this. There was no way around it. No other truth she could think of. She was avoiding talking because talking, really talking to someone, was a thing of the past. She hadn't had a proper idle conversation in a long time. She was never good at them to begin with, but the past long while, she wasn't even sure how long, had been spent with Neo alone. She couldn't remember how she talked to Penny before.

"I'm going to cut a small hole in the door." Penny said out of the blue.

"What? Isn't it like... deadly cold out there?" Ruby was sure it couldn't have warmed up already. There was just no way. It had only been like a few minutes.

Penny turned to the door behind her. "It'll be okay, Ruby. I can sense the change in the atmosphere."

"You can sense it, okay. Is it not deadly cold out there anymore?"

"It's... nippy. But you'll survive. The machinery won't be so frozen anymore either. I mean, the ice will still be all over them, but a few good smacks should clear most of it off." Penny explained as she brought up one of her working knives and fired up a laser. She started cutting through the metal, and immediately Ruby could feel cold air flooding into the room. It wasn't all that cold, however, when she really thought about it. It really was warming up fast once again. When Penny had made a big hole, about two feet in diameter, she pushed it out and let it drop to the floor outside.

Ruby couldn't help but comment on how much bigger a hole Penny had made compared to what Ruby was expecting. "I thought you meant like a hole big enough to look through."

"Is this enough for you both to fit through?"

"My butt's not that big."

"I was referring to Neo's boobs."

"Oh, yeah, let's check." Neo headbutted Ruby for the comment. "Ow. Your tits are huge, it's a good thing." Neo headbutted her harder. "Okay, now you need to fuck off."

"You two do get along in a ...unique way."

"We're not commenting on that right now, how about." Ruby snipped.

"Whatever floats your gzz-z-zz-brrrt..." Penny's voice started shorting, so she stopped trying to talk. She looked as nonplussed as robotically possible.

Hoping to draw attention back away from whatever this conversation was, Ruby started sloshing towards the door with Neo on her back while Penny fiddled with her voice box. "Let's get out of here, yeah? You want to crawl through first, or should I? Or should we see if we can squeeze the tits through?" Neo headbutted Ruby again.

Ruby and Penny looked at each other for a moment, then nodded in agreement. "The tits."

Neo responded by wrapping an arm tightly around Ruby's neck from behind and beginning to choke her. Ruby stumbled back, almost falling into the water and taking Neo with her. After a few moments of struggle, Ruby tapped out and Neo released her. Once she could breathe again, Penny, still looking quite nonplussed, went ahead and climbed through the hole. There was a moment of silence while Ruby and Neo waited for her to give them the go ahead, and then Penny's rusted face appeared in the hole. If her face could properly express anything at the moment, trepidation would be what Ruby would peg as the look the robot girl was giving them.

"What's wrong?" Ruby asked. Clearly something was wrong, otherwise... well, otherwise there would have been none of the events that led to this moment.

Penny glanced away, then up, then back to Ruby before responding. "Well, I don't think we have to worry about freezing to death anytime soon, but... You should see for yourself."

"Am I going to hate this?" Ruby asked, grimacing.

"Oh..." Penny looked up again, like she was inspecting the ceiling. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I have some uh... suspicions about what the outdoors is going to look like by the time we get there."

"Excellent. Should we crawl through the door, or are you going to open it?"

"...right. Come on through."

Ruby shrugged Neo off her shoulders and helped the smaller woman up to the hole Penny had made for them. It took some doing, as it turned out Neo's chest was indeed larger than Penny had accounted for when making the hole. Thankfully, squeezing and squishing that part of Neo was something Ruby had come to find enjoyable. When Neo was finally through, dropping to the floor and catching herself with her hands, and then cartwheeling onto her feet with trained skill, Ruby moved to follow. Halfway through the hole, Ruby had the thought that this would be the perfect moment for some monster to appear behind her and grab her, pulling her back into the darkness, but those monsters stayed in her mind for the time being. She would thank them later.

Getting out of the hole, Ruby fell on the floor with a splat. There was still water pooled on the floor that hadn't drained into the lower parts of the tower, and now Ruby was laying facedown in it. She got up, trying to spit the weird-tasting water out of her mouth and brushing herself off. Looking over to the other two, Ruby saw that both Penny and Neo were staring up at the top of the tower. She looked up to see what had drawn their attention, and immediately felt her heart skip a beat.

"What the fuck..."

The ice was gone. Warm air was washing over her now. But that wasn't even close to the biggest change. The tower's colors had changed from gray and silvery to green and brown. Most of the length of the tower was crawling with vines. Aside from the tingling sensation the sight of vines gave Ruby, there was no reasonable explanation for why they had made their way so far down so quickly. There were a few rays of sunlight beaming down through the hole in the roof as well, but they were shining through a few breaks in the treetops. Treetops standing over the top of the tower.

"...Penny...?"

"Don't look at me. Trees are not weather."

"So what do we do?"

Penny was quiet for a moment, looking around the tower. She pointed at the generator. "Look, the vines are all over the walls and the top of the generator, but they aren't on any of the moving parts. We can start it up now and it should work."

"That's good..." Ruby was a bit lost for a moment, unsure of what to do, but after a few seconds of staring at the generator, it suddenly clicked for her. The reason they'd come to this building was to turn on the generator. "Right! Let's get it on now! We have to get power to your father's vault!" She started running towards the nearest control console. It was dirty, but not water-damaged. Ruby prodded the screen and it activated. "Thank you Atlesian technology!" She turned back to Penny and Neo. "Let's get this thing on!"

"Once we turn it on, it'll start heating up." Penny advised as she moved over to the conduits they'd shut down to draw the eel out. Opening them back up, she turned to Ruby and saluted. "Ready when you are! When this thing gets hot, the water down below will start turning to steam, so we need to have a clear way up!"

Neo opened the other conduits and ran over to Ruby, pointing up to a ladder that went partway to the ceiling. Ruby looked at the ladder and saw that it was broken by a large vine. She was about to reject the ladder as an idea, but she realized the vine went all the way up to the top. "Exit acquired." She tapped through a few screens on the console, finding the startup sequence. Her eyes ran over the information displayed. "Conduits are all open, everything is functioning..." There was a green light on the cooling system. "Water's running through. Dust stores are full. Everything is ready."

Penny appeared beside her. "Neo and I should start climbing. You can catch up, right?"

"Hell yes, I can!"

"Good. See you on top!" Penny bolted off towards the ladder with Neo on her heels. They started climbing, reaching the vine and working their way up the more challenging portion of the climb.

Ruby waited until they were almost to the hole in the ceiling before pressing the button that would start the whole station up. There was a rumble, a bit of a shaking, and then the groan of old metal starting to move for the first time in a very long time. Ruby looked up, checking to see that the shaking hadn't dislodged her friends, then to see the large pistons of the generator beginning to rise and fall. The air started to come alive with ancient waking energy. She dashed to the ladder and grabbed on, climbing as fast as she could. Up to the vine, then up the vine, she closed the distance between her and the others. They were waiting for her.

With good reason. The hole in the ceiling, their only real way out, was not conveniently right at the top of the vine. The vine did come through it, but it ran sideways along the wall for a time before moving downwards. Climbing sideways along the vine was not so easy, but Ruby felt like she had a good idea of how to get all three of them there. With a sudden blur of red and a flutter of rose petals, Ruby scooped up Penny and Neo, carrying them over and up and out of the tower. She released them, dropping them on the roof, and the of them sprawled out in the rays of sunlight coming through the tree cover above them.

After a few seconds of basking in the light, and the glory of their victory, Ruby sat up. She could see steam already starting to rise out of the hole in the roof. Getting to her feet, she made her way over to the edge of the roof and took her first look at whatever new hell awaited them in Mantle. It took her breath away. The city was still clearly there, but the buildings were overrun with huge trees and vines. Vibrant colors from exotic and unfamiliar flowers covered nearly every surface. Bright blue, orange, red, and yellow birds flew between the treetops, calling to each other. A river ran through the street, probably flooding the first floor of every house, but it was clear and calm. Even in the dark under the trees, the sunlight made it look magical and beautiful. Ruby inhaled the fresh air of this fairy jungle, smelling what had to be a hundred different kinds of fruit.

Neo and Penny appeared on either side of her. Penny scanned the jungle around them in awe. "I was expecting something far more foreboding. This is... quite the view."

"Yeah." Ruby felt a laugh rising in her chest. "Let's get going, while it's still wonderful."