The Demon Core [closed]

[captainbuzzkill]

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.

Comments

[isthisapidge]

Ugh, she should be used to this from Hunk. But then again Hunk throws up from motion sickness, not dying of radiation poison on the floor. She turns her head as he vomits, towards the rapidly spinning core.

"Right! Sure!" She loops an arm around him to help him (or haul him, whichever works) to his feet. He probably does have a concussion, that much is true. She scans the room, certain she saw...there. A rack of control rods.

"There! If we insert those rods, we can stop the reactor from building up power!" She glances back at the reactor. "That is, if we could get close enough to it without boiling alive..."

[captainbuzzkill]

Dipper extends a tendril of teke to pick one of the control rods up. It wobbles in the air as he goes to shove it into the dock that needs it, but it melts into a molten pool on the ground when it gets too close.

"I'm going to have to do this faster, aren't I," he asks. "So it can start absorbing neutrons or whatever it's absorbing, before it gets hot enough to melt."

Of course this had to be harder than just gently lowering a control rod into place. He's going to have to fling it at high speed, into a very narrow target, while entire the world is spinning.

"How fast? Can you figure it out using your omnicom?" A pause, and the tiniest grin. "And your giant brain?"

Because calculating it is going to be a factor, so he's giving credit where it's due.

"And if we douse one of them in coolant first, would it make it so it wouldn't have to be as fast?"

[isthisapidge]

"Uh...couldn't hurt? No idea if it'll help either." Pidge suspects that the speed is going to matter just a bit less than the aim and, oh man, it's great that Dipper has such a high opinion of her but she's not really as much of a physicist as she she is a computer programmer. The Omnicom is going to have to fill in the gaps.

Her fingers fly over the Omnicom. "How straight can you see right now, because you are going to have to throw it at least 200 miles an hour and your aim has to be perfect." She tries to tilt the screen away from him. She didn't realize that there was an automatic probably calculator on the device and the number is...demoralizing.

"And if that's not enough pressure for you, we only have a few minutes left before catastrophic meltdown!"

[captainbuzzkill]

"Totally not enough pressure. How can I work under these conditions with no motivation?" he says, levitating another control rod, and leaning against a railing to try to steady himself.

He tries so hard to line it up perfectly, but with the entire world moving and shifting, this one goes fast enough but misses the mark, shattering as it hits the wall a centimeter too far to the right.

"Dangit."

The next is lined up perfectly, but not quite fast enough, melting in mid-air.

"Dangit!"

There's only one rod left. The rest had been trashed during the fight.

"I don't know -- I don't know if I can do this," he says anxiously, hefting the control rod up in the air with teke. It wobbles, just like he wobbles on his feet. "I can barely--"

He can barely stay on his feet.

[isthisapidge]

"Dipper!" She grabs his wrist with the hand that's not supporting him. "You have to focus. After everything else we've been through, and all the stories you've told me? I know you can do this."

A monitor by the rack of control rods sparks, and the reactor starts to emit a low metallic stress groan. Pidge sucks in breath and continues.

"I mean, let's be real, you kind of have to do this. Or this planet will be poisoning passing spaceships for the next thousand years and that's before they'll be able to fish our mummified corpses out of here without melting all the equipment!"

Is that helping? Pidge is honestly not sure if that's doing anything for his concentration, but it's kind of odd that she genuinely doesn't know. She adjusts her grip around his middle.

"Just...leave the standing to me and concentrate, OK?"

[captainbuzzkill]

It does one thing, it makes him laugh a delirious little laugh.

"Nothing like reminding someone about their potential mummified corpse to get them to chill down."

It does actually work, though. The nervous laughter relieves some of the tension. And a reminder of the stakes gets him stubborn and determined, makes him want to win. He has to do this to save the both of them -- or at least her, if it's already too late for him. He has to do this to save a whole planet.

And he's done that before.

You've already helped save worlds.

Okay, so back home, maybe that'd been mostly down to Grunkle Stan but he and Mabel were the ones that rallied the town. They got everyone into the Fearamid. Stan never would've even had his opening if it wasn't for them. And since then, since joining the Legion he'd helped save others.

...then there's the fact that she's helping hold him up. It makes something warm and tingly curl up inside his chest and he's pretty sure it's not radiation this time.

Probably.

There's a different fluttery feeling there, but despite feeling it, it doesn't mess up his control of his teke. In fact, as he rotates the control rod and lines it up, it finally evens out and stops wobbling. He draws in one last deep breath and lets it out.

"Here goes nothing."

Instead of trying to mentally hurl the thing like a javelin, he points his hand like a gun, trying to imagine that it's a bullet instead. Something meant to be fast and precise.

Bang.

There's an actual crack of sound as his teke launches the control rod at a speed of over 200 mph. It flies into the slot perfectly, and the next sound is a loud groan that seems like it might be the precursor to an explosion, and then... then things start whirring and shutting down. The core cools enough that emergency coolant systems are able to finally flood the core with coolant.

A voice blares over an intercom.

EMERGENCY SHUTDOWN SYSTEMS ENGAGING.... EMERGENCY CORE SHUTDOWN SUCCESSFUL.

The meltdown warning klaxons stop blaring and the different quieter klaxons that just signify there's still damage to the core start sounding instead. As some of the overheated emergency systems cool down enough to function again, mechanical arms reach out from the walls, picking up radiation sources and taking them away for containment.

A shield even pops up around Nuclon, and he practically growls from where he's trapped in hardened coolant.

NUCLEOPHASIC SOURCE ISOLATION SYSTEMS SUCCESSFUL. EMERGENCY SHIELDING MECHANISMS SUCCESSFUL.

"Just you wait," Nuclon growls. "I'll get free and --"

"-- get your butt kicked by Pidge again?" Dipper laughs. "We didn't even have to team up to beat you in the end. Apparently, she just had to get pissed enough to do it all by herself."

He turns to look at her, grinning.

[isthisapidge]

She looks back at him, smiling ear to ear and laughing. It's only slightly hysterical, which is really good considering that they were saved by an almost million-to-one chance.

Nuclon growls some threat or another, Dipper interrupts him, and Pidge rolls her eyes. "Oh, give it up. You had every advantage you could've had and you still lost. Imagine what we'll do when you can't split us up with surprise!"

She's still half-laughing when she turns her attention back to Dipper and says "We really need to get you to medical. Like, now."

[captainbuzzkill]

Dipper's nose starts bleeding.

"Yeah, we have to or Mabel's going to worry. I still have to tell her about --" He pauses, suddenly looking confused. "I haven't told her about the thing with the Lanterns, but this one will be fine."

Never mind the fact that she's not on Legion World anymore.

"But you're right. We have to -- we have to --" He wobbles, a hand placed on Pidge's shoulder to steady himself. "What was I saying?"

His face goes even paler, almost gray, as his blood pressure tanks, and his eyes roll back in his head. Nuclon is the one laughing now as Dipper stumbles and drops, grabbing onto Pidge's arm as he goes down to try to keep himself from just slamming into the floor. The best he can manage is a controlled drop, where he winds up at least sitting down first.

"Oooh, disorientation this fast?" crows Nuclon. "We might be looking at 1000 rads in a minute. New record, but I guess I can't take all the credit. The partial meltdown did some of the work."

"Pidge," Dipper says distantly. "I don't think it's a concussion."

[isthisapidge]

Wow, the save of the plant went so well Pidge almost forgot that Dipper was probably dying. Dipper starts to go down and Pidge goes down with him, half-dragged, half-trying to offer support.

"Yeah! Kind of figured!" she says in a rush, pulling out her Omnicom once they're both on the floor and shooting Nuclon a look to say that she's NOT paying any attention to him anymore, except for the part where he's totally right. "That's why I'm sending out an urgent call to Legion right now. Just..lay down if you have to."

Her fingers shake far more than she's comfortable with as everything she read about radiation poisoning plays in her head like an evil radio broadcast. She's only glad that her device is connecting now as the radiation levels start to rapidly drop.

[captainbuzzkill]

The floor isn't a bad place to be, especially since he somehow winds up with his head in her lap. He looks over at Nuclon, still dizzy and disoriented, but has the wherewithal to at least give him the finger. (Clearly, he's been spending too much time with people like Grif.)

"We...still...beat you," he says, and his hand drops.

Nuclon had wanted to kill a whole planet, after all. At most, he's maybe going to clock in with a body count of 1, and that's only if Dipper's untreatable.