legionmissions | The Demon Core [closed]

Entry tags:

The Demon Core [closed]

Who| Dipper and Pidge
What| A duo mission gone haywire
Where| Planet Freep, the Second Galaxy
When| After Silent Horizon, before Books of Magic and Out With the Old
Warnings/Notes| N/a

The mission is simple. As part of the ongoing diplomatic missions to the Second Galaxy, they're to meet with the leaders of the planet Freep in a peaceful exchange of information about Freep's technology and what technology the UP can offer them, so that trade can be opened up between them.

Pidge is on the mission due to her technical expertise and Dipper's supposed to be some extra muscle in case things go south, to help Pidge hold out until backup can come from the Legion. Kid Quantum felt the mission was easy enough for it to be a good place for Dipper to dip his toes back in the water after his involuntary medical leave.

So far, it's been as easy as expected. The Freepians have very advanced computer technology and energy sources to share, and they're very pleased with the threshold gates and hard light holograms that the UP can offer.

There's not much that Dipper can do when it comes to all the tech stuff so he leans against a nearby wall with his arms crossed, as Pidge gets to work, smiling a little at her obvious enthusiasm.

...And trying to avoid seeming like he's staring because that'd come off totally weird and creepy. Doo dee doo, just minding his business, keeping an eye out for potential threats.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...Okay, this isn't quite what Pidge had in mind and she's not sure she has an answer for it. Mechanical problems are potentially catastrophic, but also potentially fixable. This? This is not what she had in mind.

Though she probably should have expected it.

She turns to Dipper and mouths 'be ready to fight' before breaking cover.

"Stop right there!" She shouts at the man(?), bayard at the ready.

Dipper jumps out, too, next to Pidge, telekinetic field shimmering around him.

"Seriously, man, that's just weird."

Like, yeah, okay, he's a radioactive villain, whatever, but eating radioactive waste or whatever that junk is, that's just strange.

Edited 2017-02-10 05:58 (UTC)

The villain laughs a high and hysterical laugh when he sees them both, dropping some of the glowing rocks.

"Oh, this is too rich. When I took this job, I didn't think I'd get a chance to waste some Legionnaires, especially this far from the UP."

He dusts his hands off.

"The name's Nuclon, by the way. Personally," he says genially, holding a glowing hand to his chest, "I feel like it's just a nice courtesy to let people know the name of the person that's about to boil their skin off."

"Job?"

Yeah, that strikes Pidge as the most important word in that sentence. Though absolutely nothing about this is good!

"What job? Who hired you?!" A good time to break out her most intense voice. Hopefully he'll be too arrogant not to taunt them with that information.

"You know who. The Big Man," says Nuclon, walking towards them. "Don't try to call for help, by the way. My powers are reeeeal handy for disrupting communications bands."

"We can take him," says Dipper to Pidge, dooming them all.

Fifteen minutes after jinxing them, Dipper lies at the bottom of the shaft they've been thrown in, trying to catch his breath after having the wind knocked out of him. The fight was a brutal one that trashed half of the arrays outside the main generator (luckily, all parts that just transferred power, nothing that kept the reactor stable).

He'd toyed with them. That was the most embarrassing part. The way he drew it out, not going right for knockout blows or getting them down so hard they couldn't get up. He wanted them to get up. He laughed every time they did and laughed every time he slammed them down again. It all brought them out here, among countless toxic waste shafts, used and unused. Luckily for them, the one he through them down was unused and the shielding around it meant they were blocked from the radiation of any of the filled shafts nearby.

Unluckily for them, he took their omnicoms, set up some kind of power nullification device above, outside where they can't reach it, and left them there in the near-dark.

The only lights they have are small red service lights that provide the barest of light, and their own small belt-clip flashlights.

"I jinxed it. Yep, that was aaall me. My bad."

Ten minutes, Nuclon'd said. It was all going critical in ten minutes.

Edited 2017-03-01 04:54 (UTC)

Pidge wasn't going to let it go down like this. The old proverb springs to mind: Fall down seven times and get up eight.

And in everything but physical stamina, Pidge found it very easy to get up after she was knocked down, again and again. Sure she'd love to believe that Nuclon's toying with them hadn't angered her, hadn't build up her head of steam, but Pidge was the sort of person who couldn't be dissuaded once she'd put her mind to something.

But now she was on the floor of a toxic waste shaft. She's been striped of most of her important equipment, save her Bayard. Her shoulder hurt like nobody's business and she's seeing spots.

And Nucleon is ten minutes away from exploding the whole facility, disintegrating them and irradiating the entire planet.

"I'm fine." She finds her way to her feet, somehow, trying to keep her dizzy swaying and slurring to a minimum. "I'll be fine. He didn't need any jinx to help him with that left hook, but-"

She registers that she should stop amending that sentence right there before she talks Dipper into a frenzy and herself out of the idea she's cooking up. The top of the silo is open, and she still has her bayard...

"Are you hurt?" She has no idea how Dipper's, but if he can't come with her then Nucleon won't find it worth it to come down and get him, right? The way she keeps looking up at the opening to the shaft should clue him in to the idea taking shape in her fevered brain...

"I've fallen from higher."

That happens when you jump from over fifty feet up into the cockpit of a giant, dorky-looking robot.

"I already know what you're thinking, and let's go. If you can keep him distracted for like five seconds, I'll break the device so I can use my teke again."

It's the best they've got. He talks about it like it's not impossible, her keeping Nuclon busy even though he's demonstrated the ability to beat them both soundly. It's just a thing to try.

She's got her bayard, right? She can do it.

She has no doubt at all that's true. She nods.

"OK...We're going to have to go fast so hold on tight."

When she feels like he's secure, she fires her bayard towards the rim. It just barely clears the top but it digs in firmly. They should be able to just climb up once they get there but it won't be the triumphant jump she suspects they both want. She pulls the trigger again, the rope goes taught, and they're both whipped upwards.

Just as Nuclon peers over the rim for a second, sees what they're up to and disappears.

A second later -when they're about halfway to the top- a klaxon sounds, flashing red lights fill the container, and the lid to their silo starts to slide closed.

"No!"

It's weird being so close to Pidge, and it reminds him of being close to Pacifica during all the stuff with the ghost in the Northwest mansion. Except with Pacifica she had smelled really nice and he can't smell Pidge despite being so close, because of the transuits --

-- Not that he's trying to smell her because that would be weird, and she probably would just smell sweaty because of all the fighting they've been doing, but it's just strange being so close to someone without being able to smell anything, and --

Stop thinking about smelling her hair, it's not like you can, and even if you could, that would be creepy --

So then, despite the fact he's trying to not think about it, he starts thinking about how strong her shoulders feel under his arms. Which makes sense because of her using her bayard all the time. That probably requires a lot of upper body strength, and hers seems pretty impressive and way better than his, and --

Then, before he can even tell himself that train of thought is creepy, too, he sees Nuclon above them. The glowing villain unhooks Pidge's bayard with a nasty, mocking "whoops!" and suddenly they drop.

Dipper yelps as he suddenly feels his stomach rise up in his chest.

Edited 2017-03-02 05:30 (UTC)

Dipper and Pidge's thoughts couldn't be on different tracks. Going opposite directions. In different universes.

Can they actually make it in time? She's calculating their trajectory and the speed of the lid as best she can, though it's tricky to do in the air. Will they make it?

...Probably? Maybe?

Hopefully.

She probably could go faster if she'd left Dipper behind, even though try as she might she can't conjure up a scenario where she wins without him. The fact that he's quite literally slowing her down doesn't bother her at all.

...Is it...weird that he's clinging to her back so tightly?

Buy before that thought can go anywhere, she feels an odd lurch in the cable and snaps her head up. Nuclon's undone the hook, and he's letting it go-

Pidge shouts as the upward momentum peters out and they start falling back down.

She doesn't have time to think. She snaps the bayard back to it's handle and then fires it at the wall -somewhere, anywhere- to keep them from splatting all over the floor.

"Dipper!" She shouts, though what she means by it is a bit up in the air, even to her. Dipper, brace yourself? Dipper, be ready to let go? Dipper, don't die? Maybe all of them at once.

Dipper holds on just long enough for the line to go taut. When he loses his grip, having slowed to a near stop means he doesn't hit the ground that hard.

The quiet little, "ow," from the bottom of the silo is a good sign. It's not a scream of pain and it's not total silence.

"I really need to work on my upper body strength."

Pidge hits the wall harder than she intended, but it doesn't feel like she's sprained anything. She'll probably just be really sore in her legs tomorrow.

If she sees tomorrow.

No, she really needs to not think like that. At least Dipper is...OK? OK enough to reconvene and think of another plan. She drops down in the dark -Yep, going to hurt tomorrow- and pulls out her belt flashlight. Where did he land...?

"We'll get you a harness until then?"

"I'm not going around strapped to fliers and swing-ey people in the equivalent of a baby carrier," Dipper says dryly, getting himself off the ground and dusting himself off.

He has some dignity, okay? Not a lot of it, but some.

Dipper looks up at the now-closed lid on the tunnel.

"That's a new level of bad previously undiscovered by science," he says, holding up his flashlight to see if there are some kind of controls in here. If there's something they can break or that she can hack...

But the entire interior of the silo is bare, probably because radiation would destroy most equipment inside. They probably use outside hover-equipment to bring things in and out of the silos -- they saw little hover-carriers and devices outside.

Dipper holds his flashlight up and between his light and the emergency lights inside this place, the bareness of the walls is pretty clear.

"Pidge, there's...there's nothing in here. I don't see any controls you can hack or...or anything."

There he is. He looks unharmed and he's cracking wise, so he's probably OK. But then her gaze follows his, to the lid and around the room. He's right.

There's nothing.

"OK, then-" Then what Pidge? There are no grates anywhere to pull open, no pipes to climb up, not even any visible wiring in the lights.

"Then...we can...uh, go back up! Maybe we can trigger the mechanism on the lid from here somehow."

"You'll probably have a better chance of doing that if I'm not dragging you down," he says. "I doubt he's waiting right outside the silo. He probably went back to the main reactor core, so if you can get it open, you can just swing down and grab me."

But he...he has a feeling there's nothing she can do. The light doesn't go very far up but he doesn't see any internal mechanisms she can mess with.

Pidge nods. How much time do they have left, about 8 minutes? That should be more than enough time to trip the mechanism.

She fires her bayard up to the ceiling. The trip is much faster with only one person, but then she faces the duel problem of how to get under the lid and the wall where she suspects the mechanism is and how to hang on while she does it.

Her little flashlight reveals that the lid is more or less flush to the opening it slides out of. She doesn't have anything long and flat to jimmy between them...There's no way in.

Her arms are getting tired and her heart is in her throat. If there is any kind of emergency trigger, she can't see it. There don't seem to be sensors that she could trick into thinking there's something in the hatch and force it open. She lets herself slide down the line and to the floor.

"OK, we need a new plan."

Dipper looks up and around at the bare walls and shakes his head.

"I got nothing."

He gestures up.

"Those workers that we saved might find us if they saw us get thrown in here, but if they didn't, even if we bang things and yell, I don't think the sound will reach the outside."

There's not even anything metal that'll make a clanging sound.

An icy cold feeling settles over his heart.

"Pidge, I think we're stuck."

Edited 2017-03-05 02:59 (UTC)

Pidge looks at him for a moment. Despite the hot ball of iron that seems to have found its way into her stomach, despite the fact that they had no useful equipment, despite the fact that they had tried one thing and had already totally exhausted their list of options...

Suddenly she bolts to the wall, hopping up to one of the red flashing lights that are providing most of what little illumination there is. The little metal cage that surrounds the light is screwed in on tight, but she's sure if she can get it off-

She is not going to let it end like this. She can't. It's not budging no matter how much she pulls.

"We can get this off and get into the wiring! We just need a way to get this unscrewed." She tries to keep the fear and desperation she's starting to feel out of her voice, but she knows there's an audible hitch. "Hand me a coin."

"It looks like normal electrical wiring," he says, but he pulls out a pocket knife and hands it to her, because...because he understands this. The needing to try everything. He knows he should be gung ho about doing the same but right now he's collecting his thoughts, getting ready for what might come next.

The pocket knife is a pretty handy one, that he got here in the future, which means it has like a gazillion attachments despite being so compact.

"You can tell most of the equipment in this place is meant to hold up like forever without much maintenance. They have a lot of heavy-duty durable hardware and simple hardwired electrical systems."

She immediately gets to work on the screws, getting halfway through the third before she feels it: The low rumble of a distant explosion, or maybe a giant piece of equipment meant to spin extremely fast coming to an abrupt halt.

It fuels her determination sure enough. She'd never be one to champion willful ignorance but she really wishes she hadn't stayed up so late learning about all the effects. About meltdowns and explosions and exactly how bad it would be if the reactor goes.

"It's an easy system to maintain, that's for sure." She's not sure how much she wants to small talk right now, but it's going to keep them both from losing their minds.

She flips the screwdriver back down and flips through the attachments until she finds a knife. It slips between the light and the wall easy enough, and pries away from it's steel holders to reveal...

A tiny hole drilled in the wall with expert precision and a wire that's barely 1/4 inch thick.

She steps back, and stares at it. She's kind of glad her back is to Dipper so he can't see the defeated expression she's sure is on her face. There's just...

...Nothing?

He doesn't need to see her face. He knows the score. The walls and lid are too thick for anyone to hear their calls for help. Nuclon's powers blocking communication means help will be called in eventually, once some of the plant workers get far enough from the plant to contact the authorities, but probably too late for anything to be done.

They weren't due to check in yet. This was supposed to a diplomatic mission. It was supposed to be something easy and completely devoid of fighting. Even Nuclon seemed surprised they were there, because unlike some other missions, this wasn't a trap. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So the team won't know anything is wrong until it's too late.

If she can't find a way out there is no way out. There's just...nothing. Little lights and a sealed door and no convenient air ducts or consoles. The only reason they won't have to worry about air for a long while is the size of the silo, not its ventilation.

They're just alone in the dark.

He's read about all kinds of weird and morbid things. He loves his weird science. Nuclear bombs and meltdowns are no exception.

"The pressure wave will probably blow off the tops of all the waste storage silos so that we can get out. This one is close enough to the core for that to happen. We should be deep enough that we'll at least be partly shielded. Enough to survive the initial air pressure burst and any thermal radiation."

But not the other kinds of radiation. Not the fallout.

Edited 2017-03-05 07:33 (UTC)

Pidge looks at Dipper, and then back at the wires, then it all comes out at once. The helplessness, the anger, the defeat, all channeled into one shout of rage and a powerful punch to the wall.

...It helps very little. Not at all. Just makes her feel how powerless she really is down here. She just turns around, slides down the wall, and brings her knees up to her chin.

"Right." She hands him his pocket knife back. "Except our suits aren't rated for the radiation levels that'll be in the air by the time it'll open. We're probably looking at-"

It takes a few moments of calculating before she comes up with the answer. "Not quite enough to boil us alive in our suits, but close."

Part of her wants to cry, for all the good it will do. They can't have much time left and no solution is presenting itself, but her mind can't stop racing. She can't come up with an answer to one problem, so she's immediately gone to work on the next one: How bad will this hurt?

The answer is a lot.

"We'll still have some time. At least a little."

Maybe five or ten minutes. It might be enough, just enough, especially if they start fighting without any attempts at self-preservation. They can do a lot more damage if they're not worried about getting out of it alive, if it becomes 'if we're going, we'll take him out with us.'

"The others won't be able to walk into this without getting exposed too much too, but if we can stop him before he moves on to another world, before anyone else has to try to fight him --"

Dipper walks over, takes the knife back and stuffs it in his pocket, and turns with his back to the wall, sliding down next to her.

"We might not be able to save the people here, or save ourselves, but we can still save other worlds by making it so he doesn't leave this one. We can still make it mean something."

He takes her gently by the hand.

Edited 2017-03-05 23:36 (UTC)

She holds his hand back, tightening her grip ever so slightly.

"...If Nuclon works like I think he does, we'll need a way to cool him off. There should be enough water in the plant to soak him, even after it goes critical. Then it'll be up to Legion to contain him before he heats up again."

They're going to lose everything. Pidge will never see her family or Team Voltron again. Somewhere, Mabel is about to lose her twin brother. Their friends in Legion will be devastated. They'll have only a matter of minutes to make their deaths important. And before all that, they just have to sit and wait for catastrophe that will destroy a planet's worth of innocent lives.

She really doesn't want him to see the tears in her eyes.

"Dipper...I'm sorry you'll never see Mabel again."

For just a moment, he has to close his eyes as he tries to keep the tears in, and during that moment, he can't help but picture his sister, smiling the way she's smiled a thousand times over.

He tries to hold onto that. And hold onto the fact that someday, if the Legion can get to her to tell her what happened, that she'll probably be proud of him for at least trying to stop the monster behind this.

"I'm sorry you won't get to see your brother." A pause. "He'll probably be okay, though. Your friends back home care about you." It's so, so easy to care about her. "After all you did to try to find them, I bet they won't stop until they find him and your dad."

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