For a moment, Abel's heart soared. To him it looked like Bridgett had gotten his message, facing his direction and readying her weapon. His heart sank like a stone, however, when a slab of the ceiling fell directly between them and sent up a cloud of dust. For a moment he was incredulous; how could life be so cruel as to allow a boulder to drop so spirit-crushingly perfectly? From his perspective, Bridgett was gone, crushed to atoms by hundreds of tons of stone.

A feminine scream pierced the consuming darkness. Abel perked up; Bridgett was alive? Every nerve in his body urged to him race forward and save her. Between the dense, powder-filled air and the abyssal darkness of the tunnel, however, there was nothing he could do. Realizing how infuriatingly helpless he was, Abel could only clench his teeth and squeeze the dented hilt of the Ampere in morose anger. The continued avalanche from above forced him to crouch down near Kukaku with his hands over his head for protection, staring wordlessly at the rock beneath his heels.

Though Abel lost track of time, the collapse eventually stopped. He rose to his full height, absently brushing chips of stone and dust from his coat, and frowned into the darkness. He could find no sign of the mecha; clearly it had fallen victim to the same rubble that had ended his partner. Abel was just getting to kicking himself for letting his new comrade down so soon when he heard voices from the gloom, on the other side of the fallen boulders. The omnipresent echo in the tunnel made Gren's words clear, and more importantly, restored Abel's spirits as quickly as lighting a candle. Bridget and the armored one had made it out after all.

A noise from Kuhaku stole his attention. Abel turned to look and found the boy in agony. He recoiled at the mere sight of Kuhaku writhing in the floor, streaming tears and drawing blood from his lips, in horrible torment. Abel tried to keep a cool head and think up a way to help, but the scene before him was too disturbing to be replaced in his mind. As soon as the fit had come, however, it seemed to fade away. Abel held out a slightly trembling hand to help Kuhaku up, but he didn't seem to notice. Instead, the Faunus called out into the darkness, talking to his partner. When he finally noticed Abel and introduced himself, the guardian took his hand to shake.

“Abel Fulgurate,” he intoned. Anything else he could have said had chanced to vacate his mind for the moment, so he focused on Kuhaku instead. The Faunus hesitated, then seemed to puff up before revealing his obvious heritage. Was this guy frightened of admitting what he was? Abel knew that there was some anti-Faunus hate out there, as there was for every demographic, but fear to introduce oneself?

“Obviously,” he replied. The brusqueness of his tone took Kuhaku by surprise. “Don't know why you had to spit it out, though. You just showed that you got a lotta guts. Next time, though, you might want to let me take those hits.” By saying that, Abel effectively accepted him, implying that the two would continue to work together in times ahead. “You gonna heal up okay?”