Abel Fulgurate
In a sudden fit of genius, Abel discerned the exact purpose of the earplugs the moment Sapphire handed them to him. Actually, since the first time the Siren's mention crossed his ears, he'd hurried to use his scroll to look up any available information on the Grimm in question, so by now he hosted a pretty clear idea of what the sound-oriented monsters could do. The abilities he read about chilled him ever so slightly; if everything that shone on the little screen before him constituted hard fact, the Sirens could not only sing to entice but also mimic human voices perfectly. Holding the earplugs in his hands, and bereft of any worry that the girl's earbuds might be too small, he resolved to not allow the team to split up.
When thrust into a position to actually enforce this, just a few moments later, Abel tripped over his tongue. The news of Sapphire's aquaphobia struck him as a major problem, of course, but only did her relegation of the guardian to backup leader truly floor him. Never in his life had Abel either been explicitly given or wanted to take a position of great responsibility. After all, his strength was his strong suit. In the realms of quick thinking, adaptability, planning, and coordination, practically anyone was more fit than he in his mind. Furthermore, it seemed that by doing this, Sapphire neglected to consider an aspect of his fighting style that a maritime mission would utterly flummox. He listened sagely to Gren's reply, nodding along for the most part but inwardly making a list of things to raise objection to—it was important to have one's thoughts in order.
Once the orc finished, Abel drained his tea, folded his arms and commenced responding. “Yeah. Sight'll be real important if we can't hear.” Despite the guardian's lack of enthusiasm for a leadership role, he seemingly let slip the caveat that Sapphire needed to be incapacitated first before he start fulfilling it. Holding a finger to his chin in the very image of inspiring contemplation, he continued, “From the pictures I saw when I looked it up, the thing looks like a big slug with a bunch of different horns on its head. If anything, it's as sluggish in water as on land, and sound travels better through air, right? Might not even have to swim. Which, uh, would be good, because there's a couple issues with me and water. I'm a good swimmer, but in full clothes and this armor, not as much, and then there's my semblance. Surge has, like, two modes: finesse, and
ka-blam. One won't do anything, the other will fry everything in a fifty-foot radius in water, us too. Plus...wouldn't it really suck to try and open my eyes in salt water? Hm. Funny that the cat's the best with water, huh?” His eyes went wide. “Wait, that's not racist, is it?”
When Swansong arrived, Abel silently followed everyone else, paying a rapt and near-military attention to Captain McDougall. His patient ear absorbed every tidbit of exposition the sheriff could offer. At the end, the guardian gave a respectful nod and declared, “Yes, sir. We'll keep in touch.” For the second time that day, Abel crossed his arms and entered the realm of deep thought. “A cave. Well, we know where to start.” He cast an azure glance at Gren. “I dunno if we need to talk to the locals. If there were any big Grimm around, the sheriff would already know. The old lady never even saw the thing. Seems simple to me: go to cave, find thing, fillet thing.” An epitome washed over him, and Abel stepped back, drawing a curtain of impassiveness over whatever enthusiasm or involvement his face held. “But, um, I'm not the actual leader. So whatever.”
Already, despite the only setbacks being an uncooperatively offline door terminal and the faint, fleeting suggestion of a discreet adversary, the atmosphere grew slowly but steadily more tense. By now, only a blithe fool might expect that the Outlands Distillery held anything remotely pleasant for them.
Off to the side of the complex's main entrance lay a smaller building adjoining the main lot, whose large and legible but clearly weather-corroded sign identified it as the vehicle depot. Of course, with the main trucks and other utility vehicles outside, one might image this particular structure to be holding something more important or delicate within. Vague outlines could be seen inside a breakable-looking window, and to an especially keen eye, there lurked the outlines of a localized generator within, just enough to get the depot's doors and lights working for a few minutes.
Of course, Amy's acute senses didn't have just a murky interior to concentrate on. A persistent tapping stimulated her hearing, though its source turned out to be annoyingly hard to pinpoint—at first it seemed as if it came from above, then from an all-terrain truck parked near the giant garage door, then the tank resting against the distillery's exterior. Every so often, in fact, it might even appear as if several of these places emanated the tapping simultaneously, if she wasn't too busy playfully bantering with Lucas, at least.
A lucky minute later, the car battery lay on top of the terminal, conjoined to it by a mercifully all-purpose capable, and power flowed through the immediate system. While not nearly enough to budge the massive door, the setup -as engineered by Cian and Lorena- worked admirably to unseal the normal entrance. With this task complete, the terminal no longer posed as an object of interesting. That is, until a buzzing noise came from the inlaid microphone, punctuated by the flash of a very pressable 'answer' button just beside it. Either the ladies' work with the system left its communication feature malfunctioning, or
someone was trying to contact the Beacon teams.
Unequivocally focused on obliterating the caravan vehicle, the Death Stalker did not at all anticipate an attack from above, particularly one aimed at one of its two visible weak points. A shrill, bloodcurdling squeal filled the air as four of the monster's red eyes burst like water balloons, scattering viscous blood and an inky black fluid across its immaculate white mask. Instinctively reacting to the incoming threat, the scorpion aimed its stinger at Sterling, who -unable to change direction midair- faced an abrupt and most likely traumatic skewering. Before the stinger could even come close to piercing the senior's ego, however, Estellise fell like a bladed comet onto its back, driving her blade into the gap between mask and carapace with tremendous force. The Death Stalker croaked and lashed its tail wildly, clearly dying.
The less reactive members of team Jessant, unfortunately, fared less admirably than their comrades. The Tutankhamen standing atop the caravan vehicle, distracted from its prey by the noise and wind disturbances of the airship, looked up to see Jorie falling just a little too close. Snarling, it held still for a moment before launching into a vicious spin, its tail mere miliseconds away from batting the poor faunus across the wasteland. Sarina, meanwhile, fell afoul of a rogue air current and drifted away from the group. Rather than in a position to immediately start defending the caravan, she plopped right into a quintet of Nightmares, all equally eager to cave her internal organs in with merciless, rock-hard hooves.
