Red woke to find himself in a world of pain. After blinking several times, he managed to clear his blurred vision. If he had thought the last toss hurt, well, hurt had a whole new meaning. Every part of his body felt like it had been smashed. His head throbbed, and his limbs hurt like hell. Even the previous injury on his neck had started to scream. He instinctively began circulating his mist.
Luckily, he hadn't been training yet, so his mist was still full. That was good because he needed it, given the agony he was in. His mist began to slowly circulate throughout his body, easing the pain slightly. Red was happily surprised to find that he hadn't broken any bones. That was until he felt his shoulder and found it bent at a weird angle.
"Oh, what the hell."
He was fairly certain it was dislocated. Hopefully, Derrin knew how to fix something like that because he sure as hell didn't. It was at that point that he finally realized he was still lying face down…face down in a pool of water. That immediately kicked him into action.
Using his working arm, Red pushed himself to his knees. He grunted in agony but slowly managed to get up. He glanced around at the utter mess around him. The entire body of the ship was sitting at a very strange angle. The central machine was angled to the side behind him, almost totally vertical.
Water was seeping into the room all around him, but it had not yet begun truly flooding. Red was fairly certain that the machine was still active, even if only a little. They likely would already have flooded if not for it running. They didn't have much time, though.
Red quickly glanced around for his two friends. He spotted Derrin quickly, who had just risen to his feet a few meters away. Vizim was slumped over in the pool of water, just beginning to move. They needed to figure out what to do and fast. He quickly stumbled over to Derrin, who was looking in the opposite direction.
Following his gaze, Red spotted something that made him freeze. The entire side of the ship was gone. All the canons had simply ceased to exist. In its place was a shimmering teal barrier far smaller than before. It barely covered the room they were in. However, what was beyond the barrier was truly what gave him pause. It was water. Nothing but water.
The teal liquid pressed against the barrier, and as every moment passed, the barrier seemed to shrink slightly. It only seemed minuscule at first, but even as he watched, it shrank a few inches. The water was pressing in and overpowering the already weakened machine.
"What do we do?" Red asked.
Derrin finally turned to him, "We need to get out. But not immediately. We don't know the state of the sea above. For all we know, the enemy ship is scouring the area for survivors. We need to remain here as long as possible. That hole was blasted during the last barrage, and the shield shrank to compensate. Needless to say, I think the entire ship has sunk."
"Quite the deductive reasoning with the wall of water and all," Red said dryly.
It was clear that they were beneath the waves on this side of the ship. However, he had simply figured that the ship was tilted to the side with a massive hole in the hull. If Derrin was correct, they were fully submerged. They needed to get to the surface before they ran out of air. Splashing echoed behind them, and Vizim finally stumbled over. There was a clear look of bewilderment in his eyes as he stared at the scene around them.
"No, no, no," He muttered, staring at his shattered machine.
He felt for the guy. His fair share of contraptions had been destroyed over the years, and they all had hurt. For Vizim, this was his sole device. It was his life's work and the only thing he had spent time on. Even so, there wasn't time to let him wallow in his sorrows.
"Vizim," Red grabbed his shoulder with his one working arm, "We need to turn the machine off once it is time for us to escape."
There was a frantic look in his eyes as he turned to him, "What? I can't just…"
Derrin cut him off, "Look, Vizim. This is your time to lay your machine to rest. We will remain as long as possible without risking running out of air. However, when it's time, we need to go. At that point, every second we remain will leave us with less oxygen. There will be a very small window of time."
His head slumped at that. While some things might be saved, there was absolutely no way they could take this masterpiece with them. It pained him, but they could always come back later to salvage some parts. Right now, the only priority was survival.
"Alright. " It should be fairly simple to turn off once we get up there," he hesitated and turned to Red. "I'll probably need your help." If we don't let off some of the power, it'll simply explode from a sudden shut off. I don't trust it at all with the damage it has sustained."
"Well, we need to wait a bit," Red paused, "Uh, Derrin. Do you happen to know how to relocate a dislocated shoulder?"
Derrin glanced at Red's crooked shoulder and coughed, "Sure."
He stepped over and carefully rested his hand on the injury.
"What exactly are you going to do?" Red asked in concern.
"It's simple, I'll count to three and pop it back into place. This is a fairly common injury during extreme battle."
"Okay," Red nodded.
"Count of three," Derrin looked him in the eyes, "One, two…"
He expertly twisted on the injured shoulder, and with a pop, it snapped back into place. Red yelled in pain and began shouting curses at him. He had not said anything about the pain level. It overcame all of the other aches in his body combined. He tried breathing deeply to control his mist, but the pain made it very difficult. Luckily, he had a bit of time to overcome that pain. Red wasn't certain how long they waited, but it was quite a while.
Eventually, Red simply sat down in the bit of water and began circulating his mist. He was trying to make his injuries hurt less by the time they needed to escape. It was working a little bit, at least. However, it seemed his time for recuperation was short-lived.
"We're already starting to run out of air," Derrin scowled, "That was far faster than I anticipated. We need to do this now."
Vizim didn't even comment on the event and started scaling the now upright floor. Red followed far more slowly. He had been hurled much further in the initial blast, and his entire left shoulder remained on fire. Still, they moved quickly and in a few moments were in the right positions.
"So how does this work?" Red asked, "And what will happen when we finally turn the machine off. Will the shield just puff out or slowly shrink inwards?"
Vizim shrugged, "Your guess is as good as mine. I've never needed to turn it off in this bad a state before. It usually slowly shrinks inwards, but since we're overriding it, chances are it's going to simply puff out."
There were benefits to that and certainly some drawbacks. Red wasn't certain which way would be safer. At the end of the day, it didn't matter because they had no way of changing which way it went. With a few instructions from Vizim, they got to work.
The first step was to position the machine so it could release some energy. Once they turned off the shielding, it needed to continue the cooling process until it was no longer at risk of going kaboom. This proved to be the most complicated part of the entire process. With so much damage to the machine, they had to make many minor adjustments. In the end, Vizim had simply said the chances of the machine blowing were less than 20%. Yeah, not really what one would want, but that was what they had.
Throughout the entire process, the shield continued its inward march. It had passed into the room, and water now filled the surrounding area. Derrin watched sternly as this happened. Red knew he was worried about their chances of reaching the surface. He wasn't worried, though. Everyone in Valencia knew how to swim…he hoped. They were in a damn ocean after all. Everything revolved around ships.
Once the cooling systems were activated, it was time for the most dangerous part. This would be quick. One pull of a lever was all they needed to turn off the shielding. Red and Vizim glanced at each other briefly.
"Well, are we ready?" Red asked.
Vizim hesitated, and Derrin spoke up, "Once the shield turns off, we won't be able to immediately swim out with the amount of water pouring in. We need to wait for it to fill up a ways before making our move."
"Shouldn't you be up here then?" Red inquired.
Derrin paused, "That would be a fair point."
A moment later, the three of them balanced awkwardly on the side of the vibrating machine.
"Vizim?"
Vizim was silently staring at the machine with a somber expression. He was essentially killing his machine once he pulled the lever. It couldn't be helped, but it still would hurt. With a sigh, he turned hard.
"Ready," he replied somberly.
With that, Vizim slammed down on the lever to the shield.