Yang was getting out of the new showers, if there was one good thing about this place it was that it just didn’t run out of water, and the new showers just had more jets and setting than the basic showers in the bedrooms along with just being larger in general, making Yang’s choice to use them simple.
Her clothes were in the wash so she just took one of the body suits, one of the larger ones, and put it on, she was a little worried that there would somehow be one in her exact size, what with Blake and Weiss going on about being watched in their dorms, but considering the wide variety of choice before her they probably didn’t know the teams size, this seemed more like a “if we give enough options one will work” kinda thing.
The suit was surprising was surprisingly soft and cool for something that looked like leather, and it felt a bit like silk, and to her greater surprise the suit was thick enough that you couldn't see anything on her, just a smooth black outline of her body, with the body suit being a centimeter of fabric rather than the thin body suit she had expected at first glance.
The thicker fabric also meant the inside was smaller than it looked from the outside, and the outfit didn't seem designed with her more feminine features in mind, but the suit stretched well enough so it wasn’t actually that tight, more just form fitting.
There weren’t any other pieces of clothing though, and all of her small clothes were in the wash, and the bodysuit wasn't actually full body, meaning her feet and hands were still exposed with it on, so she was stuck without socks until the washer finished running, but she was a huntress, trained to survive in the wilderness far from civilization, so a lack of socks wouldn’t hurt anything but her mood.
The outfit was comfortable though, and she only really needed to wear the thing till her actual clothes were clean, and while she still didn’t have socks since she had last complained to herself, she could just wear her shoes without them for a little while.
Still the whole situation didn’t sit well with Yang, A massive factory in the middle of nowhere with only one person seen working at it? Enough weapons to fight entire armies, the fact that no one had talked to them, or even just locked them up for trespassing? None of it made any sense.
There wasn’t anything she could do about it though, they were lost in unknown territory, and even if she wanted to leave the factory to try and find somewhere else, A place with people who actually talked to them, the giant bug monsters outside made that a daunting prospect. So she was stuck in the vaguely creepy factory until they could all figure out a way to get home, which for all she knew could be in a day, or in a year.
The only things she could do were to help the rest of the team search and make sure everyone stayed safe. And to do that she had to make sure no one just ran off on their own to get grabbed by a giant in armor, again.
With that bit of rumination done Yang put her smile back on her face and walked out of the shower, glomping onto her sister who had been waiting just outside the door, before she spun Ruby around and stuck a pose in her new outfit and loudly asked how she looked.
Teasing her little sister always raised her mood, and it helped make the situation feel more normal, falling back into old routines and habits.
Ruby had showered before Yang and was already wearing a bodysuit, which was part of the reason Yang had put one on herself, that and blake was wearing one too, it was almost a team uniform at this point, as much as black body suits they had only worn for a day could possible be a uniform, and Yang already knew she looked good in the suit, so the answer wasn’t really important. It got the response Yang was looking for though, as Ruby giggled at her antics and said it looked fine.
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Yang knew Blake and Weiss were in the bedroom doing some work on their gear before they all left to use the camera, if something happened and they needed their weapons they couldn't have them jam when they tried to use them, without actual tools there wasn't much they could really do though, but it was still a good idea to do what little they could, or in Ruby’s case more than a little, so Yang and Ruby went towards the bedroom to check on their teammates.
Weiss, the only one not wearing one of the body suits, was sitting at the table looking at the disassembled pieces of her dust casters, a few of the barrels and chambers were slightly damaged, nothing that would cause problems in the short term though, while Blake was laying on her bed sharpening her blades, Apparently the bug's shells had dulled them.
Yang and Ruby had already done weapon maintenance so they didn’t actually have anything to do while they were waiting for their teammates, but Ruby's hair was messy and Yang had a brush and a few spare hair ties, so sitting her sister down Yang set to work on dealing with the tangled rats nest Ruby's hair had become.
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The journey back to the map revealed something that Weiss hadn’t noticed before, the layout of the machines making up the factory had changed again, not majorly, just on the layout of the conveyors and belts, but the layout had changed, and now that Weiss was paying more attention she noticed the little robots flying around were actually doing more than basic maintenance, they were actually installing new machines and conveyors, and quickly at that.
Forget weapons, if these drones could build infrastructure this fast they could build an entire city in a few months, if they had the materials which when you took in all the shipments coming in was all but certain. That kind of production capacity would put every other nation on the backfoot in short order, making a desert like Vacou equal to atlas’s level of technology and industrial development in a couple of years, or even just building walls around every settlement on a large enough scale.
That basically confirmed it in her eyes, this factory couldn’t be an remanent, if It was someone would have used it to become a global power, or at least a corporation rivaling the Schnee dust company, whoever ran this place didn’t just have an army equal to a small nation, they had the infrastructure equaling it too.
Weiss watched as a pair of drones lifted a steel beam twice as tall as she was towards the ceiling, somehow managing to lift the thing with their comparatively small propellers, following the drones flight path she could see they were building up what looked like more support beams to hold up the ceiling, and some of the new belts seemed to be heading up towards the rooftop.
She made a note to get a look up there later, those support beams looked relatively simple to climb. Getting a look at what was going on up there would only be helpful.
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This section of the factory was noticeably colder than the one Yang and Ruby had explored, and the air wasn’t nearly as humid, instead it was oddly dry, still the actual machines Yang could see were largely the same, though they were definitely producing different things.
The most interesting thing she saw was a belt absolutely chock full of grenades, which when you considered the fact she was out of dust made perfect sense, you can't have a Yang without the Bang, thousands of the things had to be on the belt and there was more than just one kind, and if no one was here to talk to them, no one would be there to yell at her for grabbing a few, and when Ruby saw her she grabbed a few as well, which led to every member of the team grabbing at least a few grenades.
Yang had to put some of the grenades Ruby grabbed back, they were spilling out of the bodysuits pockets and Yang wasn't about to let her sister shove her grenades into her own body suit so she could hold a few more.
Now that Yang had opened the flood gate on looting everyone was on the lookout for any other useful things they could grab, they were in a factory producing weapons and they were huntsmen, they could find a few new toys.
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Ruby was practically draped with miscellaneous weapons, she had managed to find bags somewhere and had proceeded to fill them with every interesting thing she could find, even if most of them were incomplete or obviously meant to be installed onto something bigger.
She even had a good excuse! She could take them apart and find out how they work and what they do! And if that let her install an underslung laser on her crescent rose? Well it was just a happy coincidence.
Even Blake and Weiss had grabbed a few of the smaller handheld weapons scattered about, even if they just looked like standard pistols! And Black had even grabbed one of the swords she had spotted earlier, so it wasn't like anyone else had room to complain.
The various random weapons she had grabbed were definitely important to figuring out how to get home, and no one could prove otherwise!
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When the team finally came near the map terminal Ruby tried to dash ahead of everyone, tried being the key word, considering she was weighed down with roughly twice her body weight in random weapons and tools she only arrived slightly behind Weiss, and she was a wheezing mess when she did arrive, who had dashed ahead herself when Ruby had tried to run ahead.
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Yang just rolled her eyes at Blake before slowly sauntering up to look over Weiss’s shoulder, who had apparently been following along the train tracks outside the main base to see where the led, and they apparently went pretty far out, though the other complex was less than a days walk out by Yangs judgment, zooming inside revealed a mass of giant drills pulling up raw ore, before it was all funneled into a massive machine, that was presumably pulling out the useful bits.
Watching the flow of rock was vaguely hypnotic, and she could have stared at those trains getting filled for hours without noticing, but she was broken from her trance when Weiss rapidly moved the camera feed back to the main base, the rapid blur of the image was a little disorienting but it wasn’t long before Weiss had zoomed the feed onto their team.
Using the screen to see the angle the camera was at Yang looked up to try and spot a drone or camera that could be providing the image, she couldn't see anything though, and that roughly tracked with what Blake had said earlier, and there certainly weren’t any cameras in the bedrooms, or on random patches of forest, so the thing really did just have a seemingly magic map.
Still she really did pull off the whole body suit thing didn’t she? The mirror in the showers didn’t give a full body view, but this thing did, and a 360 view at that, still all black wasn’t really her style, she’d ideally have a few more colors to break up the whole thing, even if a bodysuit like this was oddly appealing, and they were apparently knife resistant or at least it took Blake a while to cut through one.
Her attention was removed from admiring herself from both above and behind when Weiss once again changed the feed, now though she was just slowly panning the image around the factory, still with how cluttered everything was Yang wouldn’t have been surprised if they just outright missed a person during their scan, even with how slow Weiss was scrolling.
Pointing out that they would probably have more luck finding someone at a bedroom or a kitchen rather than just wandering around got her a little glare from Weiss, and a “that’s what I’m looking for” when Yang finally spoke up about how they hadn’t actually seen the center, if there was going to be something interesting It would probably be there.
When Weiss panned the camera towards the only wall they hadn’t seen past Yang finally saw the inner factory, and it was a mess, even with the camera showing a top down view Yang couldn’t make sense of what a single thing in that section was actually doing.
After a few seconds Ruby pointed out a patch of exposed concrete, and told Weiss to zoom in on it, and one the feed got closer Yang made out what Ruby had seen, the faint outline of a door could be seen.
Weiss now having a location to zoom in on brought the feed past the door, the area behind the door was dark, but the camera feed apparently had night vision so Yang could still make out the interior.
Just inside the door was another door, though thicker and heavier than the previous one, and past that door there was just a hallway the extended deeper into the ground at a steep slope, the walls were lined with thin holes that could barely be made out with the camera feed, and yang had no idea what they were for, the tunnel most have stretched down for 60 feet before the camera came to an even heavier and much more ornate door.
Weiss didn't stop the feed to take a closer look though, so yang didn’t get a good look at the doors inscriptions, she got a better look at the room behind the third door though, and it thankfully wasn’t just a fourth door, it looked kind of like a workshop, tools were scattered around, along with various pieces of tech Yang had seen being produced earlier.
While the workshop didn’t actually have anyone in it the existence of a workshop showed the team they were on the right track, and while the workshop was fairly large it only had 3 doors, the one they came in from and another two on the far wall, the door on the left side of the far wall had what looked like an ice cream machine and a few hatches on the wall, along with a table and bench, the room and table were decorated with what looked like engravings of plants, and while the room was largely just gray the etchings were done in a variety of colors, giving the room a bit more life.
The room was basically a smaller version of their lunch room, and there wasn’t anyone in it, so Weiss moved the camera feed into the workshop and through the other door, this one looked was blank, not having any engravings or decorations, but it did have a steel framed bed and what looked like a charging station, or at least Yang assumed it was a charging station based on the armor currently hooked into it.
There wasn’t anything in the room beside those two pieces of furniture, not any desks or draws, no books or personal items, though there was another door in the room, Weiss seemingly not realizing where logic would imply a door in a bedroom led, either a bathroom or a closet, took the camera through the door.
When the camera feed entered the bathroom and Yang saw the naked man showering she immediately reached over to cover Ruby’s eyes, only to find that ruby already had her own eyes covered, with that crisis averted and ignoring Weiss as she let go over the counsel and covered her own eyes as well, Yang took a closer look at the man.
With her closer look Yang realized that man might not be the best term, he couldn’t be older than 18, the second thing Yang noticed was that his entire body was covered in scars, but they didn't look like combat scars, more surgical lines covering his entire body, including his face, then as the teens hands pulled out from his hair Yang saw his prosthetic fingers, two of them on the same hand.
If Yang’s guess wasn’t off the teen was around six feet tall, and he had a head full of long brown hair, reaching down to his shoulder blades, Yang could see he had a little muscle and not much else, and he was almost worryingly skinny, and as yang looked closer she saw a few things wrong with him.
The camera feed wasn't the best, so she couldn’t really make out fine details, but what she had initially assumed to be more surgical scars looked instead like bulging lines criss crossing across all of his skin, giving a faint discoloration along the ridges, and his eyes were almost shining, and she almost had the feeling he was looking directly at her.
That feeling changed to a certainty when he finally finished rinsing his hair and then waved at the camera feed, before he just grabbed a bar of soap and continued showering. Blake, the only other member of their team not covering their eyes, turned off the camera feed.
After a relatively minor freakout about being caught peeping on someone the team calmed down, after all they had accomplished their main goal, they found where the other people in this factory were. Even if the only other person they had found looked like a kid their own age and that he was apparently in the middle of what looked like a deadly maze of complex machinery.
They still needed to find a way to get to him, but Yang figured that the planning session could come later, they hadn’t actually done much today but she was just tired, and it didn’t seem like anyone disagreed as they all started heading back to their rooms, though Ruby did run around grabbing things on the way back, and had handed the rest of the team more bags so she could grab more things.
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It had taken around an hour for the team to get back to their rooms, and it had only taken that long because Ruby and Weiss had both wanted to explore more on the way back, Yang didn’t really mind though considering she had found were the gold and gems were and had grabbed a few before they could go into a machine, which was apparently making tiny sculptures which she also grabbed, it wasn't like she could use the stuff or that she would be actually taking it out of the factory, but holding a bag full of gold and gems was oddly fulfilling
In their dorms they saw that another new door had been added while they were gone. And inside was further proof they were being watched, not that Yang needed more proof.
It was an armory and workshop, the walls were lined with weapons racks, some filled and some empty, workbenches, tools, and even a larger screen with multiple sets of controls on it, though that wasn’t what took up the majority of Yang’s attention.
No that was the 4 sets of armor on the back wall, the things were color coated and even looked sized for them, four sets of armor each with a different color, red, white, black, and yellow, while the other members of her team walked over to the other corners of the room, Rubys running up to the weapon racks, while Weiss and Blake went to the screen, Yang walked up to the armor with yellow outlines.
The thing was taller than she was, and it looked sturdy and well built, not an inch of it was left uncovered by metal, even if the joints had what looked like thinner inner locking plates, and while Yang couldn’t see any weaponry on the suit she knew that this thing would be powered, and you didn’t need a weapon if you could crush concrete with your hands.
Still she didn’t know how to get into the thing and Weiss was making what sounded like very annoyed noises at the screen, so Yang left the armor and went over there, and she saw why Weiss looked annoyed.
Weiss had apparently found what looked like a garden somewhere in the factory, and was watching with what felt like extreme frustration as a bunch of robots harvested what looked like some root vegetables and some leafy plants, before the robots brought the plants to a machine in the garden that turned the plants into the same mush they had been eating.
That made Weiss’s angry shouts about how “I could have been eating actual plants!” make significantly more sense.