Brady Vargus, Rachael Lorelei

Rachael laid inside the cave, almost completely surrounded by water and still in her orange long-sleeve pajama shirt and pants. She slept peacefully, despite laying on rocks. Rachael wasn't a light sleeper, she was much the opposite. But even she had to wake up sometime. Slowly, she awoke and began to realize that she wasn't quite in her bed anymore. The damp air kind of gave that away. Her eyes slowly fluttered open to see rocks just next to her head. She lazily sat up tiredly, yawning as she did so. Looking around, she quickly came to realize that she was surrounded almost entirely by water.

"What the...?" she mumbled as reality hit her square in the head. She jumped up to her feet, head jolting around as she looked in every direction. She was in a damp cave, still in her pajamas. Rachael turned around and looked down to see a male figure lying asleep like she was a minute ago. Next to him were both his and her equipment, as well as a bag with their clothes. Rachael was confused, her mind reeling for answers until she realized.

"This is initiation, isn't it?" she mumbled with a little sigh. After a minute of deep thought about her situation, she decided she needed to get changed before the boy awoke. She quickly grabbed her clothes from next to the boy and began to put them on, contemplating the situation.

The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and a light breeze played across his hair. Yep, this was definitely not where he'd fallen asleep last night. Brady heaved a mental shrug as he turned over and nodded back of. this was hardly the strangest place he'd woken up. later however, he heard someone rummaging around next to him and his curiosity got the better of him. He cracked one eye open and took stock of the situation.

Outside. By the lake. There was a tunnel. There was a girl, and there was their stuff.
"Right!" He said with a yawn as he sat up. "Initiation. that's today isn't it?"
and sure enough there was a message on his scroll outlying exactly what was going on.

Rachael was almost startled by the boy behind her suddenly waking up, and looked over her shoulder to see him. "I would assume the only reason they kidnapped us in our sleep is for Initiation." she said as she finished putting on her utility belt. She checked the pockets to make sure none of her stuff was stolen. Her wire-cables, knives, throwing stars, flash bombs and such were still there. She even still had her dust crystals and wide number of vials of powdered dust. As long as they didn't take any of her things, she was happy.

She turned around and looked over the boy in front of her multiple times before walking over to the large pool of water and examining it as well. This might be a bit of a pain, having to swim and all. Oh well, no turning back now.

Looking over her shoulder at the boy, she said: "Hey you. What's your name?"

"Brady Vargus, at your service." He said as he retrieved his gun from the pack he'd been left. he quickly checked and loaded it with fire, ice and electric dust before moving over to stand with Rachael. "And if this message is to be believed, you must be Rachael." as he spoke, he reached down and ran a hand through the water. "ugh, cold and mucky. just wonderful"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. There's probably something in the water that'll come after you the moment you go in." she said as she looked through the water. Sure enough, if she looked close enough she could see figures in the water. It was too dark to see however, and she couldn't make out what exactly it was. She figured it was hostile. "Great, not only do we have to swim, but there's stuff in the water as well." she mumbled. Walking back towards Brady, she looked at his gun, then realized she didn't pick up her weapons. Quickly picking her sword up off the ground, she buckled it to the left side of her belt and quickly put on her gauntlet.

Wondering if anyone else was nearby, she quickly activated her semblance, only to see that the only person nearby was Brady. The cave system must be massive then, which also meant this was going to be something along the lines of a maze. "That's going to be a problem then. It seems we've been subjected to a maze." she said aloud as she looked at the water once more.

"Or we could not swim..." Brady mumbled as he laid down in a prone firing position. when Rachael had turned around to get her stuff, He flicked the fire selector on Passive the ice dust chamber and began firing trails of supercooled dust along the surface of the water, creating a small path of ice on the surface up to where the first split in the path was.
He smiled contentedly as he tested the ice with his foot. He figured it would hold their weight... probably.

Rachael watched as Brady created a path made of ice. "And what if whatever's in the water jumps out at us?" she asked. "Wait, let me do something first." she said as two of the chambers in her gauntlet opened, allowing her to deposit dust into it. She took some of the vials of electric dust and began to gently pour it into the chambers before closing them. Rachael began to test it out to make sure the dust channeling abilities worked. She clenched her fist and placed her right hand on the gauntlet, and electricity pulsed throughout it for a second without causing any ill effects to her. "Okay, step back." she said as electricity began to pulse throughout the gauntlet once more. She placed her hand into the water, and for a second nothing happened.

Then electricity began to pulse throughout the water, quickly electrifying and hopefully killing whatever would be in it. After about ten seconds of this, Rachael stopped it and looked at the water. Electricity was still jumping through it, but much weaker and slowly fading. It looked as if it would be gone in a few seconds. "It should be safe now." she said as she began to cross the ice bridge Brady made.

Brady shifted his gun from rifle to shotgun, and hefted it up as he stood. holding it up against his shoulder as he followed Rachael onto the ice.
"So, now we have a choice. left, right or forward. I vote left. always hug the left wall and you'll beat any maze, eventually."
Brady said as he fired a few more dust rounds to stabilize their platform of ice at the crossroad.

"Left it is then." Rachael said with a yawn. She was still tired from having woken up only minutes ago. "What do you think is at the end of this?" she asked lazily. She looked around at the slimy walls and grimaced a little bit. She didn't like slimy things, they were disgusting. "Alright, onwards then..." she mumbled as she began walking to the left.

As Brady fired more shots to create their path, she placed her hand on her sword which sat in its folded state on her hip. Firing a gun like this was sure to attract attention, and she wouldn't be surprised if something attacked them right then and there.

The shotgun was definitely the way to go here. the wider spread allowed them to walk side by side on the ice path.
"they're probably waiting for us at the exit. Maybe with some refreshments and kind words of encouragement. Also a medical team for everyone who gets royally messed up down here."
He lets the silence hang in the air for a moment before asking "hey, do you have any spare ice dust? at this rate even with my spare vial, i'll probably run out by the end of this" He punctuated this request by firing another round ahead of them, extending the path another 20 feet.

"I have more than enough. Here." she said reaching into her one of the pouches on her utility belt and pulling out a vial of ice dust. She handed it to Brady and said, "Save it, I'll take over for now." she said as she pulled out her sword. With a flick of her wrist the sword went from its folded form to its normal straight self. She unscrewed the cap from the bottom of the hilt and quickly poured in ice dust to it before quickly screwing it back on. Pointing the tip of the sword at the water, she pulled the crooked trigger of the sword and a small burst of energy hit the water, instantly freezing it. She silently began to walk along it and continued making the icy path.

Brady accepted the vial, and sprinkled a small amount into Aggression's ice dust chamber. it hadn't actually depleted all that much, but who knew how long this maze went on for? all things considered though, this was going fairly well. He'd made a friend, and a pretty cute one at that, they weren't being forced to do anything extraordinarily exhausting, and nothing had tried to kill them yet. all in all, not a bad start to the day.

Rachael looked at Brady for just a second, then looked away. She was skeptical of him, like she was literally everything else. She didn't like him, she didn't hate him either, she just didn't care about him. 'Thanks apathy, you're ruining my life yet again.' she thought to herself as she continued firing bullets at the water to freeze it. "Soooo..." Rachael said, just loud enough for him to hear. "Why are you here? Why did you come to Beacon?" She said in order to attempt to engage in small talk.

"Wasn't my idea to be honest. family had some expectations, insisted I attend Signal. one thing led to another, i somehow managed the entrance exam, and now here I stand, meandering through a tunnel on a bridge of thin ice without any specific goal in mind, and my survival uncertain... pretty standard really. How 'bout you?"

He wasn't really focused on the small talk... or the path they were taking. really, He was hardly paying attention at all, just walking about, unconcerned.

Rachael nodded, taking in the information and processing it quickly. Her mind worked similarly to a computer, processing and storing information as it comes. It was how she liked to think, since it was so easy for her. "I'm here for the same thing family legacy and all. That and I'm here for this." she said as she raised her hand with the gauntlet. She shot several shots in rapid succession to continue along the ice path. She looked at the gauge on her sword to see she was already halfway out of dust and she would have to refill it soon if this went on too long. "I hope this doesn't keep going on like this, I'm almost out of ice dust."

"All good things must come to an end" Brady muttered as something began cracking their ice bridge. He flicked the mode selector back to regular bullets, and fired directly into the wall. He stepped off the ice and used the bullet holes as hand and foot holds to climb and hold himself on the wall.

It's only then that he notices the scratching coming from the roof.

"Son of a..." Rachael muttered as she quickly shot the ice below her to reinforce it. "I wasn't made to hunt Grimm..." she muttered, and with in one swift motion she jumped and stabbed her sword into the wall opposite of Brady. She let her gauntlet pulse with electricity again, assuming whatever was there would jump at them any second. She didn't forget about the noises coming from the roof either. "This is just dandy." she muttered, ready for whatever decided to attack them.

Brady stood from the water, shaking his head to get his hair out of his face.
"Damn that's cold" He shouts "you alright Rach?"
He Hefts his gun, and picks the burrowham which had fallen behind them. he Flicks the mode selector to Fire dust and blasts at the creature's face.

Rachael fell in the water face first and quickly twisted herself so she was facing upwards, then kicked the ground so she practically launched out of the water. "I'm fine! Don't worry about me, worry about the things attacking us!" she said. She quickly looked around and realized there were Burrowhams in front of her. She pointed her sword at them and pulled the trigger a few times, releasing four blasts of ice at them before realizing the things in the water were still around. Rachael quickly jumped out of the water and stabbed her sword into the wall again, latching herself onto it. Reaching into one of her pouches, she pulled out several knives as she hung from the wall. The knives sat in between each of her fingers, and when she through them they flew through the air with a whistling sound, aimed at any part of the Burrowham.

Well, He'd managed to piss it off, so that was a small victory at least. Only now the something's from earlier seem to have taken a shine to him. not wanting to get too closely acquainted with his new swim-mates, Brady uses some rubble from the walls to boost himself back up to the handholds he'd shot out earlier. from there he turns and fires into the water below, flash-heating it.

The rubble falling off the wall caused Rachael to fall with it. Unfortunately she didn't have her sword with her either, that stayed in the wall. The faunus girl was flung into the water on her back, but she quickly recovered. As she stood up, she looked at the Burrowham and then at her sword. While it wasn't paying attention to her, she ran towards the wall with her sword whilst reaching in one of her pouches. When she was only several feet away, she pulled out a spool of cable which she quickly unraveled and wrapped around her hand a few times whilst flinging the spool with the wire still attached at the hilt of her sword. It wrapped around the hilt a few times and Rachael pulled it, causing her sword to come flying out of the wall and towards her. As it flew towards her, she began to charge her gauntlet, Reverie, with dust.