Itama, Forrest, Stephanie and Snowplow walked through the courtyard of the Great Stone Temple, their faces focused on the giant rock that sat right in the center. "So this is it…" Itama whispered under his breath, reaching his hand out and feeling the soft, moist bud that stuck right out of the rock. "Can I eat it?" Stephanie asked Itama suddenly, laughing at the dumbfounded expression that followed. Upon lifting her head, she noticed a whispering old man on the other side of the rock. She turned to Forrest and Snowplow, who were admiring the exterior of the temple silently and tapped them both on their shoulders. They all advanced to the other side of the rock, noticing his skin bubbling like boiling water and his face covered by his hands. "Is everything okay?" Snowplow spoke up, leaning down straight towards the man. However, the second their eyes linked, a highly dangerous sense coursed through their bodies. "What the hell was that!?" Snowplow exclaimed, now out of breath due to his heart skipping a beat. His head turned to Stephanie, Itama, and Snowplow, who seemed to have shared the same fate as them.
"Guys!" Blu called out, sprinting up the stairs ahead of everyone that was following behind her. As soon as she noticed the face of the old man, everything had made sense. "Kevin, Gerald, Kaelan, this is the Man of Rock!" she exclaimed.
Volume 13, Chapter 11 - Deal
Gerald exchanged glances with the elderly man who stood right before him. Instead of the brown, messy hair that he had in the stories, he had organized, gray hair that now slid down his scalp. "That's the Man of Stone?" Gerald asked, noticing Blu and Blossom's nod of comfort and positivity. Amid the awkward vibe, Forrest stepped in front of Gerald and held his hand right out towards the elderly man for a handshake. "Don't judge a book by its cover," he stated, completely disregarding the current situation.
After about a second, the Man of Stone aggressively bit his hand. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!?" he screamed, tirelessly waving his hand back and forth to try and relieve the pain. "I don't like being called the Man of Stone!" he complained, pointing straight at Blu and Blossom.
"Anyway, did you two plan anything for the raid?"
"Nope," the twins immediately responded.
"Raid?" Kevin asked excitedly. "I may not know where we're going, but count me in!"
Gerald turned his head back, noticing Kevin's wide smirk that usually appeared when he had different ideas from what was planned. "You're not going to count yourself into something you have no information on yet, right?" he prompted Kevin.
"Even if I don't have proof yet, I suspect that our governor is experimenting with Pyron's power using kids instead of actual test subjects." Kevin leaped up in a frenzy of shock and anger, but was restrained by Gerald just in time. "On… KIDS!?" he screamed, struggling to break free from Gerald's and later joined by Forrest's grasp. "Kevin, remember the mission we were given!" Xavier reminded him, but remembered that he wouldn't listen at all. Once Kevin's mind was set on something, he was damn well going to get through it no matter what. "Let's make a deal," the Man of Stone insisted. "Assist me in the raid, and I'll help you guys in taking down Pyron."
Quickly, Kevin's negative emotions settled down, accompanied by a wide smile. "Let's see if you're really how you were portrayed in the stories," he replied.
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Under the streets of the Land of Stone sat an abandoned mineshaft that had not been commonly used in over twenty years. In the ominous hallways were about ten men (including a child who had a black headtie covering his eyes) who had a white cloth over their heads, led by one in the front who held a small lantern. Finally, they arrived at the end of the infinite hallway, and the darkness that enveloped them suddenly disappeared as they entered a small room. Upon contact with the ground, the torches placed across the perimeter of the room lit up, and a giant skull appeared right in front of them. "This is it," the man holding the child's hand whispered under his breath, pushing the young boy away and scanning the skull from top to bottom. The dusty, decaying qualities of the mineshaft were quite different from the qualities of the skull - instead, it had looked entirely unchanged. "It's just how I pictured it," one of the men told his partners, slowly throwing the white cloth off his head. He was a middle-aged man with a scar over his left eye and a dotted, blue circle tattooed on his right. About a second passed, and the tattoo across his face had begun to glow. Suddenly, a flame appeared right over the skull, and the small child suddenly fell onto the ground, aggressively grasping his head with both of his hands. "I can't go back!" he begged, crawling across the dirt to where the infernalized skull sat. "He has done a good job on placing the seal inside the child, but it seems like we're going to be the ones to finish the job," another one of the men said, taking his cloth off. The tattoo was somewhat similar to the first man, except his were a bright red color that became even brighter when the flame covering the skull grew even more. "Once Pyron arrives here, this entire city… will be engulfed in flames!"