When Ester came to after blacking out the second time in a short time, he found himself resting atop a mattress with a startling amount of energy.
"Heh?"
Blinking from the dissonance of going dark blood addled, delirious and weak before waking up the exact opposite of all those things, Ester got up feeling... strong. Clear headed even when the lack of blood should've left him delirious.
The crusted and bloodied bandages locked around his legs could attest to the fact that he should've been insanely delirious due to lack of blood reaching where it needed to go.
Looking around and shifting the blanket off of his form, Ester squinted at the darkness which appeared... bright.
He could still tell that it was dark, but despite knowing that in his mind, it seemed his eyes didn't know that fact as he picked up all the little details in the darkness.
It was as if he suddenly had night vision.
The little shards of metal flaked off of a number of pipes hanging onto the corners for dear life, the oil spill slowly dripping through a rough seal made by someone who couldn't see a thing and the distinct lack of metal legs where they should've been.
'...Guess Eva found her present.'
Crawling forwards within the confines of the vents, Ester pushed away the set of pants blocking the vents and glanced out to a flash of flickering light.
Grimacing at the sudden change in light intensity, within a few moments, Ester adapted to the change of light intensity and blinked away the remaining spots as he looked around.
The change of light intensity originated from a flickering Bulb currently directed a woman hanging on for dear life as she plugged the numerous holes in the driller with plugs made of cloth.
Hanging off the bundle of wires that had once trapped her in the air, Eva's arm trembled as she plugged the last of the holes shining spears of light into the Drillers rather broken hull.
It seemed counterintuitive to plug the holes shining light into the Driller at first glance, but that was without taking account of the fact that the atmosphere was deadly
Filled to the brim with an unknown cocktail of chemicals, pollutants among other things, the air was a deadly chemical reaction which just continued to get worse and worse every time the Toxin day came round.
And those pieces of cloth were their surprisingly effective air filters that blocked the worst of the contaminants.
Hand stretched to its utmost limit as the wires dug into her flesh, Eva shoved the fragment of cloth into the last hole with a trembling hand, her body tilting forwards as she did.
Flailing in the air as she rapidly tilted forwards as Gravity aimed to render her injured, Ester hurriedly darted towards her side, catching her before the enemy named gravity could break her neck.
Blinking in surprise as she was caught by him, Eva tried to look up only to be forcefully reminded of the fact that an iron rod was now stuck in her neck as she settled for turning around and looking at Ester's eye.
"...What? Do I have something on my face?"
She shook her head, her finger tracing letters on his chest the same way that she did whenever he tried to fix her voice box.
Ester tilted his head in question. "...What do you mean I woke up earlier than you thought? And no you wouldn't have survived the fall since you have that in your neck." Nearly flicking the iron rod for emphasis and then realizing that the iron rod was dangerously close to her spine, he refrained while Eva tapped onto his arm.
"...So you're saying I only slept for three hours after you stabbed the grey star fluid Gramps gave us into me?" He jumped lightly in place causing Eva to bounce in his grasp. "What the Void was in that thing for it to make me feel so good?"
Tapping onto his chest and interrupting his thought, Eva gestured to some sort of thing to the side.
"You want me to fix the radio?"
Observing the box shaped apparatus, Ester tilted his head. "Even if I wanted to, I don't have any of my tools for this."
[!] Eyes lighting up with glee as she rolled out of his arms and onto the ground after he crouched down, Eva swiftly swung her body to where a bunch of things were arranged atop what remained of the computer monitors, the glass being shoved to the side where they glittered underneath the dim lighting of the Bulb.
One of said things Ester noticed was the pair of legs that he had previously hidden away from Eva on account of their non completion.
Shifting embarrassedly as Eva blew past the legs as if they didn't exist, she grabbed the repair kit he had looted some time ago but was never able to use properly.
Handing them to Ester with a proud expression, despite his embarrassment for his one year project being placed out in the open, he could shove it away for doing something he always enjoyed.
Tinkering.
'Let's get to fixing this.'
Setting the repair tools onto the ground besides him and settling into a comfortable position, Ester watched from the corner of his eye how Eva settled nearby.
Shifting on his ass, he cracked his fingers before he picked up the forceps.
---
Adjusting his grip on the knob in his hands, Ester peered through the cracks of the Knob as he locked it in place, the strange amount of dark vision aiding him in this endeavor as it pushed the Receiving crystal where it needed to be.
Watching from the side with interest, Eva raised her arms with celebration as the Radio began to crackle and buzz with received radio waves from a number of unknown sources.
It was chaos the first few moments as Ester tried to remember which wavelength worked best in this Aether polluted environment, but soon enough, with a crackle and buzz, the radio began to tap into the nearby channels with unerring clarity as he adjusted the frequencies.
[Krrrk Bzzt -ray to the Architect of the Body for his mercy and his forgiveness- Krk Bzzt]
'Religion' Ester shifted it to the next legible channel as Eva rolled her eyes
[-runger reported near camp Ashtown, Earthquake turned-]
'Ashtown reports... wherever that is' He shifted it again
[-saw flames in the nort-]
[-monsieur-]
'WAIT A MINUTE' Hurriedly cycling back as Eva smacked his back, in the brief moment he heard the unknown language he returned to the frequency where they had just finished what they were saying, holding his breath as the people continued to speak.
[-misphere!]
[*crackle. Could you repeat that Z?] A male voice tainted by air poisoning echoed through the radio.
[*crackle. Like I said Jay.] Z replied with a panicked crackle, his voice muffled from what was most probably a respirator covering his face. [The entire Northern Hemisphere lit up with bloody flames!]
[*Crackle]
A pregnant pause filled the air before Jay the Air poisoned man crackled back on to the radio.
[Are you sure with what you saw Z? This isn't the time to be joking or hitting the Blasphemy. We've got dozens of folk buried under the ground wondering what in the Void happened to everyone. I need something real here.]
[*Crackle I KNOW WHAT I SAW] Z's voice came through the radio with a scream, his distraught voice echoing loudly. [I KNOW WHAT I SAW! THE SKY WAS FILLED WITH FUCKING FLAMES! I CAN SEE THE STARS MOVING AWAY FROM HERE!]
[*Crackle. Hey. Hey. Hey!] Shouting with increasing intensity, Jay coughed. [Calm down man! What the void are you talking about!?]
[*Crackle Ugh....] Z cry groaned into the radio, his distraught tone audible from both sides as he blubbered [I don't know what to fucking say Jay! The entire right side of my face is fucking melted to my mask! The clouds are gone! And- Oh Architects...]
A scream echoed through the radio channel right before it cut off with a loud crunch.
[*Crackle Z? Z. If this is a joke it isn't a funny one. Z!] The radio channel abruptly cut off with a curse from Jay, the Air poisoned man letting the channel dissolve into the planets ambient frequencies.
Letting the ambient frequency of crackling Aether fill the air that was pregnant with silence, Ester aborted the child named silence and opened his mouth. "So... The entire planets now on a collision course with the void."
Eva began to rapidly tap her fingers against his back, Ester recalling what it meant and nodding his head in understanding.
"Yeah, it's definitely to late to stop them from killing the millions of people living on our planet."
"...Are you insane Eva? We can't just waltz into a high security facility and fire up the engines to redirect our fucking planet away from the Void. We'll be gunned down before we can even reach their front step!"
He stared at Eva who in turn began to question what his plan for raiding their base was.
"...I wanted to dig underneath their base and set explosive charges so that their base would be set a perpetual tilt."
"...We know that frequency to lure Shredder Worms remember? I was thinking we just let the local population distract them while we set the charges."
"...You know how annoying Shredder worms are right? They'll definitely be distracted by them allowing us to enter their outer ring. And I was thinking of just hitching a ride in one of their transport carriers, I mean, most of the stuff here is edible only if you want to kill your taste buds so they gotta get their food some way or another."
Ester patted his stomach.
"Besides you know as well as I do that those Star borne weaklings can't survive on only one meal every three days."
She stared at him as if he were an idiot, her fingers tapping onto his chest at a rapid pace.
"...You give me a better plan instead of calling me an idiot then!"
Eva paused before tapping on his chest.
"...It would take a year at worst if they continue to fire the engines and three years at best if they leave it as is until we hit the Void lines I think, why?"
"...I'm flattered that you think I can make a spaceship in a year but it took us the better part of three years to even look for a bloody Gravitator that didn't implode yet."
"...We were lucky with the Space calculator chip, from what I can tell, the rest of the things are going to take a couple months at the minimum to get, and at that rate, we'll probably void chow."
Eva tilted her head, her eyes furrowed with frustration before her storm grey eyes lit up with the glimmer of the metaphorical lightbulb.
"...I guess by the time we do reach the North pole, most of the fancy pants nobles in charge would be evacuated leaving only the lower brass. But they still have one thing that we don't." Ester let his Inner Aether briefly shine in his eyes. "Actual Aether to form Astra."
"...Are you sure you didn't hit your head when I was asleep Eva? Cuz you don't sound right in the head."
"...Why are you using my plan against me?"
Ester laughed quietly at Eva's rapid tapping as she argued as fast as she could.
"Not that I'm complaining." Eva paused mid way in her explanation as Ester grinned at her. "Since we're gonna die if we go with our original plan, might as well take a gamble yeah?"
He tapped at her throat then at her legs both sectioned off with metal from where the small remnants of burn scars peeked out.
"But first, we should probably deal with this yeah? Don't want to be carrying you around everywhere after all."
She tapped on his chest and told him how much she approved of the idea, a laugh escaping his mouth at what she said she would do.
"Before you start kicking Heads in, why don't you wait for me to put an Unbreaking Glyph onto their skin?" Ester flashed his bone white teeth. "We can't be having them die to quickly on us."
---
??? DAYS UNTIL DESTRUCTION BY VOID
+++
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