When waking up from sleep, Ester didn't expect much from the world, just two things, waking up alive and waking up with a sense of what was happening in his immediate surroundings.
The first goal of waking up alive seemed to have been if not barely as a deadly thirst struck his dry lips, an old friend named hunger knocking on the door of his stomach as he weakly got up, his limbs as heavy as lead.
The sense of his surroundings? Well that goal failed.
"What the void just happened...?" Hearing his horse voice, Ester was briefly surprised at how bad he sounded right before he tried to open his eyes only to fail due to something seemingly welding it shut.
His dominant hand crept up to his face where he felt a crusty substance running down his cheeks in rivulets, the crusty substance clinging to his eyes like mold on bread.
It smelt like iron so it probably was blood.
His blood to be exact.
'Ah. Now I remember.'
Scratching at his eyes to remove the blood, Ester peeked at his surroundings and instantly flinched from the sharp light entering his eyes
While he was still modding the Gravitator to lock onto Astral Signatures other than that of Planetoids/ Celestial Bodies save blackholes, the protections protecting Ester from the Gravitator weakened slightly due to a discernable lack of ambient Aether.
Aether did have the tendency to move from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration as Entropy demanded, but the amount of Aether moving to fill the empty space wasn't enough to meet the amount of Aether being consumed by the Protections.
And as a Gravitator does as a Gravitator does, it pulled in even more Aether from the surroundings when the protections weakened, said Aether including his internal Aether, inducing internal bleeding in his internals.
It was probably why he internally felt as if his guts were put into the wringer.
It wasn't all bad as the Gravitator pulled in enough Aether for the Protections to reignite to full power, but it didn't last long enough for him to appreciate it as it soon weakened again.
It was a cycle of relief and disgust running laps in his body the entire time he worked, and by the time it reached the fiftieth cycle of feeling his insides shift a centimeter forwards, Ester was half out of his mind from the sensations of his insides rebelling against him.
The other half of his mind was still controlling his limbs to form the Ward properly.
A half of the mind that instantly shut down the moment that it deemed the Scheme complete, the most likely culprit to him falling to the ground on his metallic arm that poked at his already disturbed kidneys.
Licking his dry lips, Ester let out a quiet groan as he looked around.
The first thing he noticed was how disgusting he was.
It made sense since his internals were being messed around with, but with the amount of darkened blood covering his body, it was a wonder how he hadn't even noticed it beforehand.
It wasn't worse than the time when he had to hide in the lake of sewage and unmentionables because of a horde of Raiders, but it was a close second.
On the topic of second, the second thing that he noticed was the Gravitator nestled in a metal claw, the metal prongs holding the Gravitator up as it shone with grey light on his worktable.
It seemed that when he was in the midst of completing the new Gravitator core, his internal Aether had gotten mixed up with the results, forming this grey light currently shining down on him.
Peeling himself up and off of the ground with several pained grunts, the metal indented in his flesh sent twinges to his kidneys.
Despite how many things that his right arm could do, being a pillow for nap time wasn't one of them.
Thankfully his past self still seemed to retain the consciousness of mind to keep it safe otherwise that was an unknown amount of time wasted almost instantly.
Staring at the Glyph covered Gravitator, he absentmindedly noted how the swirls forming the Glyphs seemed to appear like clouds.
Swirling like the clouds on the trash planet, it was honestly beautiful how the Ash colored storm clouds formed by swirling lines connected with each other to form the Ward Scheme: Astral Signature locator.
A bit of a mouthful to say so should he shorten it to Signature Locator?
Moving on.
The third and final thing Ester noticed after being unconsciously reminded of the fact was the fact that the lights were still on.
It didn't seem like such a big deal for the proper worlders not exiled to this place, but it made a whole hell of a difference when the only thing you had as a power source is a Large Aether Crystal on its last legs.
So either Eva forgot to turn them off which was doubtful at best and impossible at worse, or he hadn't been unconscious for long.
Ester would bet on the second one if his body didn't beg to differ.
"Ack."
Massaging his gut, he felt portions of his skin where his body weight had memorized the metal.
Very boxy and not comfortable to be memorized metal at that,
Considering using Eva thick skull to grind off all the congealed blood in his throat as he dusted himself off, Ester's eyes roamed to the engine where he last remembered Eva was at, moving over Eva's prone body on the ground to the Engine room...
His eyes darted back to where Eva lay, his confusion palpable as he wondered why in the Thirteen would she be lying on the ground in such a compromising and heart pumping position.
Then he finally noticed the dried crimson black around her face and his heart really got pumping.
"EVa!?"
Voice cracking in his mouth as he instantly slid towards her, he briefly acknowledged his knees squealing as they rubbed against the ground before grabbing her by the shoulders.
Swiftly shifting her weight so that she was resting flat against the ground, Ester's eyes crawled across her features marred by the blood leaking out of her eyes and the corners of her throat, the same congealed black fluid coating her body like his own.
Ester cursed at his own self 'You fucking idiot! You forgot to warn her!'
Hurriedly feeling for her pulse, Ester felt a weak pulse of life echo against his hands like a dying battery.
'Okay! Still alive! That's good! Now stay alive!'
Thanking the Architects for their unusually high amount of clothing they never threw away, Ester grabbed a bunch of shirts and shoved it underneath Eva's neck as he made a dash to the medicine cabinet.
Marked by a series of red colored fridge magnets arranged into the shape of a red plus shapes, he ripped open the panel, revealing medicine bottles and medical items shoved in between the Drillers internal wiring.
Ripping out a few of those medicine bottles, of the medical items, Ester took only the injector band.
Sliding back and briefly acknowledging how sore his knees became, he rolled up her sleeve to her elbow, revealing a scarred patch of skin which he then set the injector band over.
Clicking it together in place and confirming it was set properly, he hurriedly began to drop the medicine into the open vessels.
'Coagulant tablets, Rose Bloom capsules, Nutrient Solute and Caffeinated pills.'
Closing them, Ester stabbed his finger under the latch and revealed a button glowing with obvious press me intent.
Adhering to the intent, numerous green lights blinked to life from besides the filled vessels, each one of them being ground to dust sized particles before mixing in with the watery solute.
Buzzing as it swirled all the components together beneath a clear glass, Ester watched with worried eyes as the injector band let out a hiss, ejecting all of the gases so as to not kill its patient, the vacuum sealed liquid being pressed against the glass.
Then the Injector band snapped against her skin.
Injecting the liquid directly into her veins, Ester held his breath as he waited for Eva to wake up from her slumber like the Sleeping Ugly she was.
Thankfully, he didn't need to wait long.
Letting out a sigh of relief when Eva faintly stirred, in a few more moments, Eva fully stirred, her stormy grey eyes fluttering about in confusion before they refocused on his face.
Flickering weirdly, the speaker crackled before her mechanical voice echoed out.
[Why is-is it the first thing I see is your ugly mug?]
That relief was instantly squashed by her glitching words.
"Glad to see your alive as well." Ester sarcastically bit back, his eyes rolling as he pulled himself back up.
[Kek, did the ugly baby cry when he saw me?]
"Absolutely not you ugly hag."
[What about those tear marks on your face?]
"...The void are you talking about?" Tilting his head in confusion, Eva let a hiss of air escape from her throat in a motion similar to a sarcastic sigh.
Didn't know that she could do that.
[Your bloody tears. Idiot.]
'Ah' He shook his head before bending down to poke at her crusted cheeks. "If we're talking bloody tears, you cried to idiot."
[Whatever do you mean you butt ugly idiot?] Suddenly looking at him with a pair of pants covering her face, Ester couldn't help but chuckle at how absurd she looked.
Not every day you see pigtails made from pants instead of hair.
[Why are you laughing? Let me in on the joke.]
"I can't let you in on the joke if you are the joke."
[Well fuck you to.]
Responding to her raised middle finger with his own, Ester opened the door heading to their tiny bathroom, glancing back at the grey haired woman revealing frazzled hair disturbed by the pants hat as he spoke.
"By the way, you won't mind if I use the bathroom first right?"
She blinked while running her fingers through her frazzled hair. [I very much mind what the Void?]
"Great, so I'll just wash myself first, you can clean yourself later."
[Hey. Hey. HEY! Don't you dare lock me out of the bathroom you bastard!]
Letting out a hurried scream as she leapt towards the bathroom, Ester grinned as he shut the door behind him.
Or at least that was what he intended.
"Hmm..."
Staring at the woman currently stopping his efforts with both of her arms, Ester opened his mouth.
"This isn't ideal."
[No the fuck it isn't, now bring your ass closer so I can hit it.]
"No."
[Get over here!]
---
Having just finished their deep cleaning session together, Ester used the pair of pants previously worn on Eva's head as a towel to clean her long strands of grey hair.
"Hey idiot."
[What's up my fellow idiot?]
Looking up at him with grey eyes, he lifted up a few strands of her long hair as emphasis. "Isn't the idiot going to cut her hair at some point?"
[As the idiot already knows, that answer is no.] Shaking her head, Idiot number 1 let out a quiet sigh.
"Even if the Idiot says no, the idiot should at least give me an answer right?"
[Hm... How do I put it in a way that even an idiot can understand?] Idiot number 2 made a show of being deep in thought before looking directly into idiot number 1's eyes and tilting her head. [Because I don't want to.]
"If you put it that way then who am I to argue with an idiot's logic?"
[An idiot.]
"Why are we putting the word idiot in all of our sentences?"
Eva paused for a brief moment before admitting with a shrug of her shoulder. [I don't know.]
[Idiot.] She added almost as an afterthought only to let out a sharp hiss of air when she felt a pair of knuckles being ground into her head.
[IIIIIIIII?!??!]
"Haven't heard that sound in a long time."
Hearing the ear piercing sound of a high pitched squeal tear out of the speaker, Ester hurriedly stopped before she could destroy his ear drums.
"Ouch."
[Don't catch me by surprise and I won't kill your ears yeah?]
Eva glared at him with vengeance filled eyes, he rubbed his ringing ears. "Yeah yeah, it's my fault that I gave you a noogie."
[If you know where you went wrong then it's good.]
She leapt off of the chair where she sat, her hands carrying herself to the front of the Driller.
[Now if you'll excuse me, I have to find a Rift so we don't get stuck underground because of fuel problems.]
"You do that." Nodding his head, Ester threw the wet pair of pants to the side where it joined a pile of clothes. "In the meantime, I'll connect the gravitator to our Radar system."
[Is it going to break anything?]
"If I fuck up."
[So it's 100% going to break something.]
"I would kick you, but I have something more important to do."
[What's more important than doing me?]
"...Was that an innuendo?"
[It's whatever your pretty little mind can think of pretty boy.]
"Didn't you just call me ugly earlier?"
[Potatoh potaoe.]
Shaking his head at her audacity, Ester turned towards the Gravitator core held up by three metal prongs.
It was remarkably beautiful, not as beautiful as the mouthless woman with a mouth full of venom, but it was a close second thanks to the numerous curved glyphs swirling together like the clouds covering the skies of the trash planet.
It almost made him reluctant to stuff the Gravitator in the Radar apparatus where the light don't shine.
Almost.
He would have to be an idiot to not use something he risked his life over creating.
Besides, if he wanted to see something beautiful, all he needed to do was look at the front of the Driller.
Carefully picking up the Gravitator with his right hand, he felt the pulse of the Gravitator's protections beating against his hand.
It was like a heart.
A heart that could find anything that he wanted when he stuffed it into its body.
Opening up the side of the Radar apparatus with his left hand, Ester grinned brightly as he pulled out the Radar module.
With this baby, they would be able to find anything they wanted instead of just the run of the mill stuff.
'One step closer to escape'
Grin threatening to split his face in half, Ester slotted the Gravitator into the Radar Apparatus and watched as it lit up with greyish light
+++
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