Rez's torch dimly lit up the hallway in front of them as they slowly and carefully drifted through the darkness.
A lot of clutter was left floating around freely as a result of the power outage. Power tools, crates, screws, bolts and everything in between.
Krowe gently pushed a metal container to the side as he followed Rez, glancing back behind them occasionally out of a bit of paranoia.
"Are we far from your sister's room?" he asked Rez, still looking back behind them.
"No, it's just up ahead" he replied, gesturing to the doors that they were passing by. Krowe would nod slightly and grab onto a large, worn out wrench.
Soon enough Rez grabbed onto a pipe on the ceiling as they came to Riza's door, but to his dismay the door was already wide open.
Krowe looked at him, then to the door, where he noticed that it hadn't been opened with any metal bar or tool. Instead, the doors had big Riza sized claw marks and dents in the door.
He whistled and looked to Riza "You know, we probably should have expected that she would have gotten out herself. She is a walking tank."
Rez sighed, placed his free hand on his hip, then nodded "Yeah, you're probably right. But she couldn't have gotten very far, right?"
"I'm not sure, look at those claw marks. Who's to say she didn't dig her way to the engine and is fixing it herself"
Rez puffed out air, then looked back to the hallway.
Krowe looked at him "Well, we've trained for things like this. In case of an emergency, seek out a higher ranking officer for instructions"
Rez looked to him "Depending on what higher ranking officer we find, that instruction could be anything from "Assist those stuck in their quarters" to "Kill yourself you Hybrid freak"" he said, unsure if they should do that.
"Yeah, so. We find one that isn't a dick"
Rez mumbled, before a loud noise brought them up to high alert. It startled them, but Rez looked down the corridor and saw a few lights flashing around.
Krowe nodded "Engineers, come on, we should go and ask where it's safe to wait" he said as he pushed himself along and called out.
Rez nodded and followed suite.
The lights all pointed towards the two, and voices called out to them.
"Are you alright?" "Is there anybody else trapped in this dorm block?" "Are you hurt?"
It felt reassuring to hear their concern as they got closer to them, and they were fully equipped to deal with the situation.
The engineers were wearing white pressurised suits with the Ironclad logo on it, with various spotlights that illuminated the area. Their helmets hid their faces behind a reflective welding mask visor.
Although pressurised, the suits were adequately padded and armoured to prevent punctures from sparks or drifting materials.
They each had small electric thrusters attached to their chest and back to let them move freely in zero gravity, and they carried a small canister on their back that was filled with the various gases they would need to weld with.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Rez shielded his eyes from their powerful spotlights, to which they dimmed them down.
There were five engineers in total, and while two checked on him and Krowe, the other three were investigating some wiring and cables underneath a whole section of floor.
With a power tool, they unbolted the panel from the floor and carefully lifted it up to let it float above them.
Under the panel itself was a lot of thick wires and three giant cables that were as thick as someone's leg.
The cables and wires were all connected to a single metal box that had various switches, dials and other devices on it. It looked to be some sort of power breaker.
Krowe looked past the two engineers inspecting them and down at the hole that was filled with wires. It was all fairly neat and managed well, with the wires being colour coded and separated with dividers to prevent tangling.
One of the engineers began to flick the switches on the box, with each one making a loud click as it was moved.
There was mumbling, before one engineer spoke up. She sighed before speaking.
"Well, this one should be working now. Where's the next one? Deck below?"
Rez looked over to one of the engineers giving him and Krowe a quick check up and scratched his head
"Do you know where we might be able to find Coco Gems, or even Jacks Revia?" Rez asked, hoping that they might know.
The engineer looked up to him and seemed to ponder for a moment
"No, sorry. I'm not sure where they are. I know where Luna Rocks is though, she's an engineering supervisor and often spends time with Coco. Let me radio back and find out for you two, okay? It might be a moment or two, a lot of people are trying to use the radio at the moment"
The engineer moved off to the side as he pushed a button on his wrist, which extended a tall antenna from the side of his helmet, and a small device on his chest projected a holographic display of the radio frequency and different channels in front of his visor. He began to press different buttons to tune the radio.
Krowe looked back to Rez and smiled "Well, we're getting somewhere at least. I just hope that whatever went wrong gets fixed fast"
Rez nodded in agreement and flicked his tail, he seemed to in thought however.
Krowe watched him and then waved his hand in front of his face.
"You alright there man?" he asked, tilting his head quizzically
Shaking himself out of his daydream, Rez looked to him and nodded.
"Yeah yeah, I'm good. I'm good. I'm just, worried about Yui. And... Well, everyone else"
Pausing for a moment, a small grin grew on Krowe's face at the mention of Yui, before he playfully punched Rez in the shoulder.
Unfortunately for Rez, the lack of gravity ended up pushing him away down the hall. He made no attempt to slow himself down, he merely folded his arms and stared grumpily at Krowe for his teasing.
Their eyes locked, and they both watched one another as Rez drifted away. The last thing Krowe saw before Rez vanished into darkness was a middle finger.
No words were exchanged. But Krowe was pleased with himself.