The echoing cackle was a barbed hook in the dark, reeling them in. Aurélie and Charlie stood poised at the tunnel's mouth, the air growing thick with the scent of heated stone, the walls beginning to bulge and flex as if about to scream. Ember' laughter bounced, closer, closer—
The thunder of hooves erupted behind them. Tori-Rick, Gin-Becy, and Nito-Dunc arrived in a clattering storm of shaggy wool and scrabbling, protesting bah-ah-ah-ah-ahs, their rams skidding to a halt on the loose scree.
"Tall ones! Halt right there and—!" Tori-Rick's command was cut off as the mountain groaned.
This wasn't a tremor from afar. This was the tunnel itself convulsing. The walls shuddered inward. The rams bleated in terror, jigging sideways, their hooves scraping sparks from the stone. Charlie yelped, grabbing a protruding rock to stay upright. Aurélie braced a hand against the shuddering wall, dust pouring over her shoulders like grey water.
Then, with a sound like a giant's spine snapping, the ceiling directly above them split open.
A jagged fissure ripped across the rock, and from it, a torrent of hellish, glowing orange-red poured forth. It wasn't a seep or a flow—it was a waterfall of molten rock, a roaring, spitting curtain of liquid fire that crashed to the tunnel floor with a hiss that scalded the air. The heat was an instant, physical blow, sucking the moisture from their eyes and throats.
The Ruru-Gin screamed, a chorus of pure terror. Their rams bucked and spun, eyes rolling white. Gin-Becy clung to her saddle's horn, her ledger flapping wildly.
And into this infernal glow stepped Ember. She emerged from a side passage, stopping dead. The savage, dancing light of the lavafall played across her face, erasing the last vestiges of clarity. Her mouth hung slightly open, not in fear, but in rapt, bewildered awe. She watched the river of fire with the delight of a child at a fireworks show.
Aurélie moved. She lunged through the choking heat, her boots slipping on the newly heated stone, and seized Ember's wrist in an iron grip.
Ember turned her wild, glittering eyes on her. "So… fun!" she giggled, the sound horribly bright against the roar of destruction.
"This way!" Charlie shouted, pointing desperately to the only tunnel mouth not yet occluded by collapsing rock or advancing lava—the leftward passage, now a dark maw promising only unknown dangers.
But the lava was already pooling, a glowing, viscous lake spreading across the floor, its leading edge creeping with terrible patience toward the shrieking Ruru-Gin and their trapped rams. The heat baked the air into wavering mirages.
"There's only one option left," Aurélie hissed, pulling a mesmerised Ember toward Charlie.
"Wait! Our rams!" Tori-Rick cried, trying to calm his shrieking beast as the molten rock inched closer, its light glinting off his pot-helmet.
"This way! Now!" Aurélie commanded, her voice cutting through the panic. It wasn't a suggestion.
Tori-Rick, about to protest, looked from the advancing doom to the tall warrior's unyielding gaze. He made a decision. "Abandon the mounts! To the tall one! Go, go, GO!"
The Ruru-Gin tumbled from their saddles, scrambling on all fours away from the heat. At that moment, two more figures stumbled into the chamber from a rear tunnel: Over Regolith and Morning John Belied. They pulled up short, their seasoned eyes widening at the apocalyptic scene—the towering lava-fall, the spreading lake of fire, the clustered survivors.
Their gazes swept over Aurélie, Charlie, the manic Ember, and the terrified Ruru-Gin children. A silent communication passed between the two Bosses, a lifetime of underground crises communicated in a nod. Survival first. Accountability later.
Morning John jerked a thumb over his shoulder, his voice a booming cannonade. "This way! Move your bones or become cinders!"
It was all the invitation needed. Aurélie, dragging Ember, and Charlie, clutching his satchel, sprinted toward them. The Ruru-Gin scrambled after, their small forms nearly lost in the billowing dust and horrific orange light.
Over Regolith stayed behind. He planted his feet wide on the trembling ground, facing the creeping tide of molten rock as his comrades fled.
"What about—?!" Charlie cried out, looking back as he ran.
"Keep moving!" Morning John roared, herding them like stubborn rock-mules. "He'll be fine! Worry about your own hide!"
Ember cackled again, the sound echoing down the tunnel as Aurélie's grip on her wrist tightened to the point of pain. Behind them, the fearful bleats of the abandoned rams were swallowed by a new, greater sound.
Over Regolith took a deep, steadying breath, filling his lungs with the scorching, metallic air. Then he exhaled, not a breath, but a command. His Devil Fruit power surged forth not as a trickle, but as a cataclysm. A torrent of pure, pressurised water vapor erupted from his entire being, a geyser of white, roaring steam that blasted forward to meet the lava.
The meeting was violent. A deafening, continual shriek filled the chamber as the superheated steam slammed into the molten rock. An immense cloud of blinding, hot white vapor exploded outward, instantly swallowing the lavafall's glow. The world went from hellish orange to a pitch-black, seething whiteness. The sound was the angry scream of the earth itself being quenched.
Overstrained, muscles corded in his neck, flooding the chamber with everything he had. The steam banked and rolled, cooling the rock surface, solidifying the advancing edge into a black, crusted shell. He pushed more, the vapor so thick it condensed on the walls and fell as a scalding, sudden rain.
The tremors subsided. The immediate advance of the lava halted, trapped behind a rapidly thickening wall of its own cooled slag.
In the now-dark, steam-choked chamber, lit only by the dying, sullen glow beneath the new black crust, Over Regolith turned on his heel. He vanished into the cloud of his own making, a silhouette swallowed by the white, his heavy boots pounding the rhythm of pursuit as he followed the sounds of fleeing footsteps into the trembling dark.
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