//------------------------------// // 175. Menacing Magma. // Story: Baa-Ram-Ewe! // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Krakarov, Clockwerk’s crumbling lair, Carmelita- I ran forward several steps, crouched down and then managed to jump before the massive magma monster in the shape of some kind of serpent slammed into the inner wall of the volcano. Landing on a slowly collapsing piece of stone falling from the wall to my left over a destroyed section of walkway, I leapt forward and onto the stairs on the other side. Looking back, the large magma monster wasn’t moving, but it there were a ton of magma slugs coming off its body after us by wiggling up along the volcano’s inner walls. More were pouring out in various places. “Volcanoes sinking, why did you come to help me?” Well lamb on my back was cheery sort given the dour mood she sounded to be in. “You look like someone I met, she looks a lot like your sister.” There’s also the fact that she was going to die had I not interfered. “You were in danger and there’s just something about you that…” “Would have been fine.” As the roughly breathing Leap Lamb said this, I pulled my pistol and popped three magma slugs in the way and leapt over the melting section of metal walkway. Everything was collapsing around us and there was very little stable ground and the only way to go was up. “Now in danger… because of me.” “I’m not sorry ma’am, you needed help and you don’t look too good now.” I turned around fired a charged shot from my shock pistol. Clusters of magma slugs flew from the wall while backing up away from them, we were out of stairs to go up and... A massive explosion from below blinds me for a few seconds and I look at smoke filling up half the volcano, it seems the geothermal plant Clockwerk built here finally blew up. More of the volcano was collapsing by the second. Pillars of rock and boulders were falling from the walls and the top of the volcano was crumbling slightly, but still sturdier than the lower inner walls currently were “That’s just going… to make getting out of here… harder.” Leap Lamb commented from my back dryly, as the magma snake started to shift and rise up, like all the magma around it was currently doing. “If we even can, we’re going to have to chance climbing the…” Feeling a hoof tap me on the shoulder, she pointed at a large series stalactites and her right hoof trailed to a series of ledges along the walls. “That’ll work!” Aiming the shock pistol at the nearest stalactite formed from the crumbling insides of the volcano, I fired and it dropped. It hit the magma and stayed in place, I quickly crouched and jumped as a magma slug burst from the wall and felt my tail get singed from the heat. I landed on the pillar turned and fired a shot into the magma slug and watched with satisfaction as it splattered apart. “They’re climbing… drop next one…” Leap Lamb’s voice was getting very faint and pained, her labored breathing meant the heat must be getting to her. “I really could use my… medication… right about now… or maybe I should just stop and let… things take their natural course.” “Yeah, no, you’re not dying on my back after I came back for you, now hold on!” I raised my pistol, charged a shot and fired, the stalactite held fast. I charged another shot and fired, the Stalactite cracked and started to loosen. “I have to know, are you suicidal? Come on, fall already!” I fired another shot and the stalactite finally fell, a magma slug rose up over the edge of the pillar mouth wide, I wouldn’t be able to reorient in... A cute barking noise erupted from my back and a blast of energy ripped the magma slug apart, not even a hint of residue of it was left behind. “If anything you are… for coming to save me...” Did Leap Lamb just seriously bark a mass of energy? I was going to need to more about her later. For reasons… “Now move… conserving strength…” Didn’t need to be told twice as I leapt high up and onto the second pillar as several magma slugs lunged over the top and were entirely covering the first pillar when I looked back. Some leapt after me, but they thankfully lacked the same level of leaping ability I did. Looking back I could see the magma snake roaring, turning forward are started to rapidly fire shots at two of the stalactites above and ahead. This was just not my day, having to stay ahead of the magma and the monsters coming from it, with what amounts to a boot camps amount of weight on my back and after being captured by a maniacal mechanical menace. Eventually my shots finally were loosening the two massive pillars of stone and they fell at the same time. I crouched and jumped, about five seconds later the pillar I was on toppled and on the pillar I was now on was being climbed by the magma serpent swirling around it. They eyeless monster soon wrapped around the pillar enough that it raised its head above me and opened its dripping molten maw wide, I crouched down and jumped forward onto the next pillar as the one behind me became engulfed in conflagration of heat and flames. The serpent’s tail flicked in my direction and I fired a shot stopping the molten boulder that came flying me way, however the other two struck the pillar damaging it. I didn’t have time to drop another pillar as the tail wobbled to flick more molten boulders and the two molten boulders below turned into magma slugs that were coming up the pillar at us. “No time…” The sound of Leap Lamb’s firm voice and my twitching ears, I turned and looked at where she was pointed her right hoof. The stalactite’s I had yet dropped. “Jump.” Some of the ledge’s she was pointing to along the wall across a large distance from us were partly crumbling, but there were enough ledges that we could comfortably climb to the top of the volcano. “It’s too far, we’ll never make it.” I turned blew apart the top of a magma slug with a quick shock pistol blast, then I returned it to my holster. “Jump high… forward… trust…” You weren’t leaving me with much of a choice and not like I had much of one anyone if I wanted to climb along the walls with the slugs not burdened with having to find ways to grip onto the jagged stone. We needed a way out of the crater and the vent, so I crouched down and bunched up all the muscles in my legs. I wonder if I was impressing Leap Lamb with how well I can jump? I trained to be able to make ridiculous leaps to keep up with Sly and eventually capture him. I leapt for all I was worth and I tried to reach up, I could barely touch the stalactite before our combined weights started pulling us back down. That’s when Leap Lamb acted, her rear legs wrapped around my chest as she thrust the front of body upwards and her front hooves connected with the stalactite. Leap Lamb grunted as she forced us to swing forward and we launched a magma slug dropped at us from above. She launched out her left hoof and grappled another stalactite and began to heave us around and towards the next one. When she grappled the next with her right hoof, we heard a roar from below and looking down the serpent was rising from the magma maw wide. “Wall.” Inhaling sharply Leap Lamb then did something upon exhaling. It was almost like it was hysterical strength, but far more controlled. Like a flame lit up inside of her for a few seconds We burst forward at an insane speed. Using both her hooves, she grabbed the backside of the next stalactite in a blur instead of the front facing us and, using an impressive amount of strength for having such a small body, she launched us forward for the wall at an angle. At least… I was still flying for the wall. Leap Lamb was currently limply falling off my back as we flew towards it. Acting quickly, I unslung my handcuffs sitting at my left hip with my right hand and lashed out catching Leap Lamb’s left hoof with it and started to run along the wall while focusing on the ledges. I was about to slip and fall off the wall from running out of momentum, I crouched and leapt holding tightly onto the middle of the handcuffs hoping that I didn’t lose Leap Lamb in the process. My left hand flashed out and found purchase and I was hanging from a ledge, I struggled to find purchase with my boots to push myself up as rocks crumbled under my feet. I eventually managed to wear enough of the rock away so that my boots could solidly press again the bottom of the ledge. Hearing the sound of something breaking, I looked behind me to see the magma serpent ripping the stalactite if had bitten into off of the ceiling as it fell back into the oncoming magma from below. It soon rose up and turned our way. “I didn’t come this far trying to save your life just so you could die to save mine!” I heaved myself up onto the ledge and pulled Leap Lamb up with me, I slung her left hoof over my left shoulder and then brought her right hoof over my right and cuffed it tightly. Securely having her hooves over my shoulders, I crouched and jumped to pull myself up to a higher ledge a good twenty or so feet up. A second later the serpent rammed its molten nose into the ledge below, breaking it and several others entirely apart. It roared up at me as I hopped to a higher ledge to my right, it rose up along the wall and smashed the previous ledge from underneath. It spat a wad of molten rock my way from its mouth, I pulled my pistol and fired a shock blast taking out the deadly projectile. The magma serpent swerved upward and overhead, I looked over my shoulder and then jumped backwards. It ripped through the ledge as I landed among a number of higher up ones with more choices about which way to go than I previously had. Before the serpent entered the magma is slung its tail at me sending three more molten boulders my way. After firing three quick and accurate bursts, I charged my pistol and aimed it downwards below the ledge I was on. It erupted from the magma and received a fully charged electrical explosion to the face toppling it back down before it could reach me. I’m not taking my shock pistol off the lethal setting for the time being. Noticing a number of slugs were now coming out of the walls around me, I took aim glancing left and right, then down at the bubbling magma that the was moving about sluggishly. Cooper… if I make it out of this alive, then you were truly no the most aggravating thing about my life. I leapt up a platform to my left and fired a shot dangerously splattering a magma slug above me, I’m thankful none of the falling chunks of molten rock landing on my fur or that of the unconscious hero. I leapt to a platform on my right and then one to the left before I had to stop and blast several magma slugs that were getting dangerously close to cutting me off from climbing higher. I was above the crumbling lower walls of the volcano thanks to our efforts. We only had a mostly straight climb to the top, I heard the rumbling of the magma serpent again. Turning to quickly fire my shock pistol, I splattered the magma slug trying to climb up onto the ledge I was on. Crouching, I leapt up to a ledge above me, then I leapt to a ledge close by to the left while charging my shock pistol. I turned and unleashed the blast into the side of the serpents head sending it flailing back down into the glowing magma. Jumping up to a platform on my right, it immediately started crumbling making me hastily dive onto a platform next to it as it fell away. “Come on Carmelita, you’ve got this, you can see the sky!” Why was I trying to give myself a pep talk? All this jumping was murder on my legs and I could go for a nice quiet low threat case after all of this. “Just got to make a few more good leaps.” The heat was getting to me, like it might have gotten to Leap Lamb after doing whatever it was she did to herself. Oh god, I had to check if she was still breathing or not! One problem with being able to check on the current health of my cuffed acquaintance… Swarms of magma slugs were slowly crawling along the walls from my left and right, they were coming from below and I could even hear the lava serpent about to attack again. I only had a few seconds to do it while getting a little rest and then I really needed to start moving. I had three platforms to choose from above me and not much time to make that choice, I was about ten good leaps away from relative safety with Leap Lamb’s body was still secured to me by my handcuffs. I had a hunch that she was related to that other sheep and the strange goat I saw again in China, but I wasn’t quite sure of it yet. Coincidences were known to happen. I charged my pistol and waited, I flicked my ears in the direction of the unconscious mouth and barely heard a faint raspy, jagged like a knife sounding, intake of air. It was barely there, but she was still breathing. Good, I had to get her help as soon as possible before she stopped breathing entirely. I leapt up and to the right as a number of slugs leapt for the platform I was on and then the serpent smashed through it. I fired a charge shot at it, the slugs were splattered everywhere and the serpent fell back down and off the wall. Just a few more good jumps, I leapt up and grabbed a platform with my left hand and fired my pistol at a magma slug coming from the right. Once on the platform I blasted two on the left. As I jumped up to another platform I began to wonder what was going on out there and what was Cooper currently doing now? I knew he wouldn’t leave the area, not after freeing me up. He had a score to settle with the owl, speaking of owls I looked up and saw a massive shape that blocked out the sky as it flew overhead. It looked quite familiar to me, didn’t I drop my jetpack onto that thing? It wasn’t a tower after all, just a bigger body that can somehow fly in the face of physics telling it that it shouldn’t be able to even get off the ground. Just what I needed, more trouble to take care of. Cooper just kept getting lower in my list of priorities today and it was driving me insane, like my tail being slightly cooked or my clothes being covered in ash that has gotten into places I’d rather not mention. Hearing a roar, I looked around warily and started shooting the magma slugs to push them back from where I currently was. There were a lot of them and more than the amount of charge left in my shock pistol could deal with. Being about twenty ledges from the top of the volcano now, I was looking down at how far up the magma had come. I could also see the magma serpent slithering in a circle in the molten rock and to the wall on the far side to start to spiral up it on an intercept course. I was so close I had to move faster, I was going to have make riskier jumps. I couldn’t let that thing get above me or come at me from the side. Crouching I pushed my legs and passed by two platform before landing on a third on my left, my legs were starting to feel like jelly with all the pressure I was putting them under. It’s a good thing I never skipped on exercising to be able to match Cooper’s speed and agility. Another leap and I skipped a platform and landed on a narrow ledge, the magma serpent was getting closer. Another jump and I managed to pass two more, I was still going too slowly there was no way I was going to be able to outpace the serpent slithering along the wall at us. I had to recover my balance and leg strength between jumps. I turned and blasted a magma slug in the middle of its leap at me, there’s also that as a problem. I crouched down and leapt up and manage to bypass two platforms and a ledge to grab onto a platform and pull myself. So close. The serpent roared and spat magma balls at me, I leapt upwards a platform and only blasted one out of the air, the one that would have hit this platform had I stopped to shoot the other two to stop them from hitting me or the platform I was standing on. It had managed to slow me down and it’s opened its mouth as it came at me sideways along the wall, I leapt up to another ledge and it veered upwards. It was getting increasingly hotter, and it was going to slam into me. I fire my shock pistol into it, it absorbed round after round. I was barely even slowly down, I needed a charged shot to stop it! It reared up off the wall and prepared to dart forward to strike me, then a fully powered shock pistol shot slammed into the side of its head making it fall off the wall wailing in anger. “We’ve got you covered Carmelita, now get out of there!” I looked up and saw Officer’s Wild and Hopps, good to see those two were still around. Three shots flew down past me from the overheated rabbit aiming her shock pistol downwards, looking downwards I saw several of those magma blobs being blown apart. I leapt up several ledges in a few bounds and had to stop to catch my breath on a platform, I was almost out and Officer Hopps was keeping the magma slugs from getting close. A section of the wall next to me started to glow. Crouching I jumped up high and grabbed the next ledge with my left hand as I fired down at the magma slugs with my right as the erupted onto the platform below me. The platform was flat and cracking badly, but it was supporting my weight as I kicked the underside and flipped myself on top of it. Another roar and the magma serpent was preparing another. “We’ve got a huge fight going on up here between Clockwerk and our mutual allies, we really need your help now!” A robotic falcon swooped down for Nick as he updated me on the situation and second falcon with oddly discolored eyes slammed into it from behind and ripped at one of its wing and left it falling into volcano. “That must be the Trojan, get up here!” Nick laid down and held out his hand ready to pull me up, as I leapt to ledge that circle around the entire top portion of the cone and was two ledges from safety. A roar almost broke the concentration of my next jump, one ledge and then I could jump up to Nick. I looked down and saw that the serpent was snaking its way up towards me at an alarming speed. Leaping up to next ledge, I then looked up at Nick and leapt up to grab his outstretched right hand. “Got you!" Nick pulled me up and was referring to the fact that Judy was firing rapidly, the serpent was avoiding taking blows to the head as it shot up overhead and angled down on all of us. "Carrots, can’t you stop that thing?!” Judy fired a fully charged shock pistol shot into its head and that only stunned it for a second, before it came down at us with its mouth wide open. That’s when the falcon robot from earlier swooped into its mouth and then detonated spectacularly. The magma serpent's head snapped back and it slowly started to solidify into a horrible cobblestone statue. After a few seconds of complete silence, it started crumbling away and fell back into the volcano. For some reason it's destruction caused all the magma slugs below to start solidify exactly like it had. "Can I get a full situation update?" You know, aside from the whole volcano melting down. -Equus, World Summit, Jade- “Oh come on, world leaders deserve to have fun too, right Novo or is it Nova if you’re doing the hippogriff thing?” I asked politely. “Oh come on Jade, are you seriously telling me that you’re not the cause of the recent issues in Saddle Arabia?!” Having slowly wormed my way into being friends with absolutely everyone in the room, it was a surprise that Amira seemed a little miffed that bad things were happening to Saddle Arabia that were totally not my fault. “I know how much you hate my country Mirage.” “The country, yes, the people, no. I can easily be friends with the people from Saddle Arabia.” A lot of the world leaders found it comical that I was considered the most threatening thing to Saddle Arabia’s existence. It warmed the cockles of my heart to hear such a thing was happening though. “Besides, I’ve been under constant observation and have had no time to plan something ridiculous to befall Saddle Arabia. Like unleashing a swarm of combat durians from Huoshan on the marketplace.” “I don’t know if I should feel horribly threatened or horribly amused about that.” Amira muttered dryly. “Maybe both knowing you.” “So… how was Ms. Springer the other night?” After I said that, Amira promptly covered her head with her hooves as her face turned straight red. “Jade can we get back on topic, the really boring ones that you’re distracting us all from.” The entire room groaned sadly at Fizzle’s interjection. They wanted the mad cap silliness to continue, also worldly gossip was relatively fun too. Discord grumbled and passed a bag of bits to Twilight, I narrowed my eyes on him and he grinned brightly. -Saddle Arabia, Snickers the Turtle Dove- “Coo…” Taking up the last bit of tasty banana and then waiting for a precise moment for a thief to run by, I toss the peel from the stall. - The results were spectacularly destructive, one could not even fathom how a little turtle could destroy three building in less than five minutes with a banana peel. Not that anyone see the turtle do this or know that it was a flying turtle, the incident was blamed on the evil sorceress 'Mirage' all the same. The Turtle in question had recently learned some tricks from the best banana peel trick artist in the world, Jackie ‘The Blackcap’ Chickadee La Perm. Said turtle rubbed her flippers together and hissed in victory.