Hybrids

Adrift

With the lights not working and all power throughout the fleet disabled, Rez and Krowe were left in the dark. The only light they had was the orange glow that came off of Jupiter. It was difficult to see where things exactly were.
Rez had managed to put clothes on in the dark and was now searching for his torch that he kept in the locker underneath his bed.. The Forge was an old ship, and was unfortunately prone to malfunctions and failures. Torches and other useful tools were handed out to almost every crew member in case of said failure.
Many of the ships that made up Ironclad's resistance fleet were older models, with some even being brought out of retirement and put back into service to bolster Ironclad's ranks against Theodore's lifeless legions. 

Not being able to do anything until they could see again, Krowe was floating in the air in the middle of the room. He was watching Rez, just barely able to make out his silhouette in the dark.
Narrowly dodging a shoe that was flying towards his face as Rez rummaged through the locker, he sighed and folded his arms.

"With no power, the oxygen generators will be offline. There's a lot of people on this ship, and it might not take very long for everyone to use it up" he said, concerned for their situation.

Pulling out a very old battery powered torch, Rez flicked it on and held his breath as the lightbulb struggled to turn on, but once it did it was a strong and powerful light source.
He turned to Krowe and shrugged, shining the light on him to which Krowe winced and looked away.

"It's a bit early to think about that. For all we know the power could turn back on in a few minutes. But we need to go and see if everyone else is okay" he said, turning and pushing himself off of the bed and towards the door.

Silently floating through the air towards the door that was now illuminated by the torch, Rez looked to Krowe and beckoned him over.

"Come help me with this" he said, putting the flashlight up in the air and making sure it was still, before letting go. It floated there and shone its light onto the door, letting the two see what they could do without being hindered by having to hold the light.

Krowe came over and looked over the seams of the door.

"It should just be able to slide open like its on wheels. These older doors become pretty much useless when they aren't powered" Krowe mentioned.

Rez nodded and put his hands against the metal body of the door and pushed it to the left, hoping it would be an easy escape. But to both of their annoyance it would only move a few centimetres before it got stuck.

"Damnit. It's stuck..." Rez muttered as he tried to get his fingers into the tiny gap he made, only for Krowe to pull him back.

"Don't do that. If the power turns back on the door might just shut on your fingers" he said, concerned for his friend's fingers and safety.

Frowning at the lack of options they had, Rez looked back around the room and grabbed the torch. He shined it around to see what they had at their disposal, before looking at the metal frame of his bed.

"Think we could take off one of the metal bars that holds up the mattress and use that to pry open the door?" Rez asked, his ears flicking quizzically.

Krowe wasn't sure as he shrugged and pressed his feet against the wall, he bent his knees and then straightened them out to push himself across the room towards the mattress 

"Only one way to find out" he said as he grabbed the mattress and pulled it up off of the bedframe, giving him access to the metal bars that went across the underside of the bed.
He grabbed one of them firmly and pulled on it. With a hollow metal clank, the pole slipped out of its socket and was set free from the rest of the bed.

Rez looked over and held his hands up as Krowe gently pushed it towards him. Rez's blue eyes tracked the pole as the light from the torch reflected off of it and casted a unique and strange pattern of light against the walls and ceiling, like when sunlight goes through a glass and gets reflected all over the place.

Catching it, he was quick to try and jam it into the gap between the door and the doorframe. He wiggled it, pushed it and dented the head of the rod until it was able to slip between the gap.
Rez cheered to himself internally and made sure to push it deeper into the gap before he tried to pry it open, just so he would have room to work with.

As Krowe came over to help him, the door groaned and screeched as it was forced open. Rez's enhanced strength made the task far easier as the door was now pushed open enough for them to slip out into the hall.

Rez went first and drifted out into the hallway. With no windows in any of the halls and corridors, the halls were completely blanketed in an almost unbreakable darkness. He shone the torch down one direction but it seemed like the light would only go so far.
The dark metal halls that had clearly been through the passage of time, with rusty panels, creaking metal and missing light fixtures. It filled Rez with a sense of dread. He had watched plenty of horror films, but the feeling of possibly being in one himself made his blood run cold.

Krowe soon got out of the room and into the hall, scratching his head as he looked over to Rez "Alright. Now we should go find out what's going on with the power. Coco might know. Or Jacks."

Rez nodded "I mean, you're probably right. But I imagine they're already drowning in problems from this. They'll have a plan or something to get the power back on. We should make sure that our people are alright first"

Krowe nodded slightly "Yeah, I suppose your right...Our people" he said, a little solemnly.

Rez nodded and turned to face forward. He took a deep breath before he began to make his way forward and through the dark halls.

The two slowly pushed themselves along the walls of the corridor, using the torch to light their way through the dark.
As they floated past doors to more rooms, Krowe looked a bit concerned.

"Do you think that people are still stuck in their rooms?" he asked, his head turning to look at a few of the closed metal doors.

"No. I'm usually the only one in this dorm block in the mornings. Everyone else here is maintenance crew. And their work never ends around here" he said as he drifted towards an elevator door.

Krowe nodded "Yeah, I hear you there.."

The two chuckled slightly, but then Rez looked to the elevator door "Riza is only four decks above me, she should still be in her room. I hope anyway" he said as he began to pry the elevator doors open.

Krowe watched him and held the torch to give him some light, and with a lot of metal creaking and groaning, the doors were pushed open.
The elevator wasn't there, but they couldn't have used it anyway.
Rez took the torch back from Krowe and moved into the elevator shaft, which was somehow even darker than the rest of the halls.

Krowe followed after him and the two began to climb their way up using the maintenance ladder.
The torch illuminated the shaft, although it still faded into blackness when it was shone both up and down. It gave the tunnel the eerie look of being endless.
Thick cables and wires were running all along the walls, held in place by metal separators to keep them from falling out in front of the elevator whenever it passed by.

"Do you think anyone ever got hit by the elevators while working on them?" Rez asked as he climbed, looking down at Krowe who was close behind.

He shook his head in response and chuffed "No. They turn the elevator off when working on them. If they don't then they deserve to be hit at that point"

"Bit cruel but alright, sure" Rez said a bit worried at Krowe's calm expression after that response.

The two continued their ascent, chattering away until suddenly all of the lights in the elevator shaft switched on with a loud 'chunk' noise. The two were surprised and startled with the sudden brightness, which also hurt their eyes as they had gotten used to the dark.

"Ow, ow, that's bright!" Krowe muttered as he winced and continued to climb through half shut eyes. 

"Yeah, it is. Do they really need all these lights in here?" he asked, mumbling "Doesn't look like the gravity is back on either"
 
Though as they were passing the third elevator door and nearly reaching the last door, a familiar noise drew their attention. 
Whirring as its magnets were powered back on, the elevator had resumed the trip that it was doing before the power gave out. Which was sending it directly towards Krowe and Rez.

Rez looked to Krowe and Krowe looked to Rez, both frozen for just a few moments before they scrambled to climb faster.

"Climb faster, climb faster!" Krowe demanded, pushing Rez upwards as he was first in line to be hit by the elevator.

"I'm climbing as fast as I can, stop pushing me!" he yelled back, his hands clasping onto the ladder and pulling himself up with as much speed as he could gather.
He grunted and hissed as he slammed his knuckle into the bottom of one of the poles, but grit his teeth and powered on.

"Goddamn it, c'mon!" Krowe begged at this point.

The elevator was speeding up, with no gravity to counteract its acceleration, it was free to pick up as much speed as the elevator shaft would allow.

They reached the final door and Krowe was first to start prying the door open, pushing his hands against the door and growling to himself as his fingers dug into the metal and bent it out of shape. The doors groaned and creaked under the stress before they gave way and slid open, slamming into their frames as both Rez and Krowe jumped out just as the elevator flew past.
The air that it was dragging along with it nearly pulled them back in, but they avoided being slammed into by a gigantic slab of metal.

The two looked back at the empty shaft and waited for a few moments, before the almighty thundering crash that echoed down to them. It was like someone gave a thunderstorm a shotgun.

The two Hybrids looked at one another, panting and sweating from their near death experience. Before they began to laugh at one another, but their laughter was swiftly cut short as the lights flickered and died once more, casting them back into the darkness.

There was silence for a few moments, before Rez's disembodied sigh filled the hall.