We soon made our way to find the two doors that Hange mentioned. We came around to the first door and I realized that it was the room that belongs to me and my other friends. I quickly walked over and tried to push open the door, hoping everything on the other side would still be intact, but it wouldn't open.
"Damnit, it won't fricken open!"
Levi placed then moved me out of the way with his hand and forcefully kicked open the door. The door broke the rest of the way off and toppled to the ground with a loud 'clang'. Hange and I both stared at him in shock, causing him to look at us with an annoyed look.
"What? I got it open, didn't I?"
Hange shrugged and walked inside with me. We saw five intact beds around the room along with duffle bags. Two on both sides and one resting at the back of the room with lockers by each bed. Every bed had names above them. Dan and Yan's beds were on the left, Sam and Jay's were on the right, and against the back wall is mine. Tools were scattered all over the floor and two of the lockers had fallen onto their sides.
Everything looked almost exactly the same as I remembered. Several emotions were washing over me as old memories came flooding back to me. Hange noticed a faint blue glow coming from one of the standing lockers and picked it up, glancing back at me when she read what was on it.
"Hey, (F/n), this thing has your name on it." She said, walking over and handing it to me. I looked over it and realized it was Sam's old music player. 'From Sam, To (F/n)' It read.
'Message transferred to PDA.'
I placed it away and decided that now wasn't the time to get emotional again. I will just have to listen to it when we get back. Putting my emotions on a shelf, we looked around the room a bit more and found nothing else of use besides a picture of me and my friends, which I placed in my inventory. We then turned and walked out of the room, making our way to the next room. We made our way over to the Captain's quarters and typed in the code I had received via transmission from Alterra.
'2679...' I typed in the code and the door slid open. Inside, we saw yet another PDA, a poster of the Aurora and a miniature model of the Aurora on one of the wall shelves, and a data terminal.
Walking in, I picked up the PDA titled 'Captain's Log', and then took the poster off the wall. Levi then grabbed the small model before I touched the terminal and saw a new blueprint for the Neptune Rocket appear on my PDA.
"We got what we needed. We can leave, now." I said with a relieved sigh. Hange let out a disappointed whine while Levi mumbled a simple 'Thank God.'
I chuckled and walked past them and back down the hall to the P.R.A.W.N. Bay area. As we walked down the steps, all our PDAs went off.
'Picking up a faint Blackbox signature, originating on the other side of the hull breach in this room.'
I glanced over towards the giant pool of water and walked over, looking down into the water. With another sigh, I spoke my thoughts.
"Might as well grab it quickly while we're here. Don't worry, this is the last thing and then we're definitely leaving." I dove into the water while Hange immediately following behind. Levi rolled his eyes in irritancy and dove in after his two female companions.
As we navigated our way through the pipes, wires, and broken pieces of metal and boxes, we eventually got to the other side of the room. We swam up through a breach in the floor above us, the doorway ahead being blocked by metal. Turning around, Levi pointed towards an open door to which we swam towards. Swimming through, above us is a cloud of smoke and a fire-covered ceiling. I noticed another terminal and touched it, downloading the data into my PDA.
I turned my head and saw a doorway leading further in and swam through with the others following suit. I got to a dented and broken door and took out my laser cutter again. Motioning for Levi and Hange to keep their distance, I cut open a hole big enough for each of us to squeeze through.
The door slid open and we all swam in and looked around at the mess. Vials were scattered around on the floor while some were broken into pieces. We swam around the room and saw a PDA on the counter and another terminal beside it with a door at the back of the room.
I went for the PDA and downloaded the data for late itr before going for the data terminal next.
'Databank corruption was detected on your PDA. Your repulsion cannon blueprint has been resynchronized.'
'Oh... Okay...' I thought to myself, as I opened the back door. The walls shook from the sounds of a Reaper's roar from outside. 'We must be near another exit then.' I thought nervously to myself.
Swimming around the collapsed piece of metal in front of us, I noticed a doorway up above. I then crawled on top of the metal and helped both Levi and Hange up before walking over to the door and pulling out my extinguisher. I put out the fire and saw a hallway and light coming from a doorway blocked by debris. I tossed the empty extinguisher to the side and pulled out my propulsion cannon as we neared the door. I removed the debris from our path finally feeling the sun hit my skin.
"We're finally back outside," I said, taking in a breath of fresh air. Hange puffed out her cheeks, obviously a little upset that there wasn't as much to explore as she thought there would be.
"Now that we're finally outside, let's find our way out of here," I said, making my way down the slanted metal platform. We looted a few more supply boxes along the way and stopped at the water once we made our way down. Shivers were sent down my spine as we hear yet another reaper. I looked over towards my two partners and saw their hesitance.
"It's gonna be okay. I promised Mr. Smith I would keep you safe. If anything happens, keep swimming and I'll handle the rest." I spoke, trying my best to calm their nerves as well as mine with a smile. They both nodded then entered the water. With a deep breath, I followed the others towards the opening we came in from.
Once we reached the opening, I held my hand back, urging my partners to stay behind me as I took a look outside the entrance. Once I located the leviathan, I made sure it was far enough away for us to make our escape.
"Now! Go, go, go, go, go!" I urged, waving my hand back and forth rapidly not wanting to waste any time. Another roar rumbled through the ocean as we all used our Seaglides to move away from the wreck as quickly as possible. Adrenaline rushed through my veins as I heard the sound of my heart pounding in my ears.
Panic settled in as Hange quickly stopped with a gasp. One of her tools slowly making its way to the sandy plain beneath.
"Hange! What are you- Just leave it!" I yelled, now realizing how close the leviathan is to our location. We only made it a few meters out, nowhere near enough space between us to be considered safe.
"HANGE!!! (F/N)!!" Levi screamed, emergency in his voice as he pointed over towards the large leviathan quickly making its way towards us.
"Shit! Levi!! SWIM!!" I screamed, immediately using my Seaglide to make my way back to Hange. I grabbed her by the arm and then started dragging her away, the leviathan already after the both of us.
'What am I gonna do?? I promised! I promised Mr. Smith I would protect his cadets.' I didn't have much time to think as tears welled up in my eyes from the sight of the large sea monster, its bloodlust painfully obvious.
"Don't look back!!" I yelled as I bumped Hange away, just enough so that the claws of the Reaper grasped around me. I screamed in pain, feeling my flesh ripping along with my suit from the claws and teeth of the Leviathan.
I pressed my feet against its face in an attempt to keep it from shoving me into its mouth. I cried out more as its mandible dug deeper into my arm. I quickly reached for my heated knife and brought it down hard on its head.
It let out an ear-piercing roar and started thrashing around. I tore the blade from its head and repeated the process over and over until I finally let out a fighting cry and brought the knife down into its last working eye, rendering it blind.
The leviathan let out a final scream as it unlatched its claws from my body and swam off into the depths of the ocean. My vision faded in and out as I slowly began sinking, soon feeling arms wrap around my waist.
-
Hey everyone! Ghastly here once again! See, we told you we'd be back, and here we are! Now, I'm going to inform all of you of the slight change that Tom and I are doing. So, since we've both recently returned, we've decided that doing two publishes a week makes it a bit harder to keep up with, so, we've decided to upload every Thursday from now on. That way it leaves four days between each publish and it gives us more time to work. So, with that said, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and we'll see you all next Thursday. -Ghastly