Volcano (Full Story): Written by Exodus, Original Story by Exodus In the southern corner of the kingdom of Furen Terre, surrounded by vast oceans, was a tiny island with a small population. The natives of Findion were not really a part of the world, and lived here in peace, but their home lay beneath a tall volcano thought to be dormant. Recently black smoke had rose into the skies, clearly a bad sign, and so a messenger was sent out find someone who might be able to deal with the extensive problem. Eventually, it was the Resistors who arrived to help, a small boat dragged into the island’s shores, and off stepped Edwina, Dagger, Samia and Lucia. “I hope we’re not too late.” stated Edwina, “We’ve got to solve this mystery before...” “We know, Edwina... We know...” spoke Dagger calmly. In the village, the Resistors escorted the last of the tribe out, along with the elder of the village. “So everyone’s moved to the high cliffs.” noted Samia. “Yes. It looks as if our village will be destroyed, the gods must be angry with us...” he muttered. “Personally I don’t believe this supernatural stuff.” snapped Edwina. “Edwina, have some respect!” exclaimed Samia. “I just think that no god would destroy such peaceful people, this has got to be the work of a demon...” Edwina turned to the elder and bowed slightly, “You and your people stay up on the mountains until we’ve returned, we’ll go inside and investigate...” Inside the volcano, the Resistors crossed several paths, slowly descending into the heart of it all. Strangely, rope and wood bridges had been built and placed around where needed, they didn’t look too old, so that ruled out the possibility of it being built here by the tribe’s ancestors. “Guys?” questioned Lucia, “Have any of you thought that if this isn’t a demon’s doing, then we could be up to our necks in lava before long? Even my robotic armour can’t protect me against such heat for long.” “We could always turn back.” stated Dagger, “There’s still time to leave this place, we shouldn’t be giving up our lives when we could be saving more back home.” “Dagger!” shouted Samia, “We’re not going to let those Findians lose their home and possibly be buried in lava without trying to stop it.” “... Yes Samia.” he frowned. “Danger or no danger, us Resistors have to attend to any disaster that may still be prevented.” added Edwina. “Danger it is then.” said a low echoing demonic voice. The Resistors ran forward so as to be off the rope bridge before staring up at the owner of the ghastly voice. It came from a deranged looking demon with a skeleton head, long pink hair fell out the sides of it and fire glowed within the eye holes, other than that, it wore a long black robe, with huge sleeves that concealed the hands. “So very nice to meet you Resistors at last, I am Skullkrack, the fire demon.” “Fire demon, but that could mean-” said Lucia before being rudely interrupted. “Hahahahahahahahahah!” screamed Helena, diving from high above and tackling Lucia, the two sisters rolling off the edge of the rocky floor and falling several feet down, finally crashing at the bottom, but very close to the main stream of lava. “I was foretold that you young ones might become an obstacle to me, that’s why I sent Helena out to take care of you all, but I seriously underestimated you.” “It only took two of our own to defeat her.” stated Dagger, “The three of us will be more than a match for you unless you stop this volcano from erupting.” “A threat? Nothing will stop me from burying this island in lava, not even you!” “What’s the point?” questioned Samia, “What good to you is destroying the island?” “More than it standing here does, my purpose in this world is to destroy, but more specifically, landmarks of importance, I only recently came to this world so I was not able to foretell your greatness as you had already made that known, I will destroy you, and any other places in which gifted warriors could be born!” “You have no right!” shouted Dagger surprisingly loud as he leapt forward, but with a swing of arms, two bony hands with fire blazing out the bottoms flew out of Skullkrack’s sleeves and caught Dagger’s hands. He was thrown into a cave wall, the hands restraining his own until the left hand of Skullkrack increased its size and the two hands pulled Dagger’s together so that one hand could hold both of Dagger’s against the wall and the other could grasp his neck and choke him. Meanwhile, Lucia and Helena struck fighting claws together, brawling dangerously close to the lava pools. “So now that you’ve seen my master, what do you think of him?” Helena asked casually. “He’s an ugly monster.” answered Lucia. “Blasphemous dog. Skullkrack is an almighty demon who will wipe out all opposing warriors, alive and yet to be born, until no one can threaten him.” growled Helena. “And why do you serve someone like that? Do you really want the whole world to suffer? I thought you only wanted vengeance on me.” questioned Lucia. “All part of the deal I’m afraid Sis, I would have died by your handiwork had he not saved me. I never much cared for the world one way or another, so destroying most of it really doesn’t bother me.” “You’re a fool Sister, if Mama and Papa were still alive, don’t you think he would have destroyed them? They were heroes of this world.” “Don’t you say their names!” screamed Helena, “You stole them from me!” With that, her wings outspread, with a different look today, the upper parts and structure were metal, but the rest was made up of blazing flames that added to Helena’s already dangerous body, Helena struck fast and pushed Lucia until she crashed into one of the volcano’s walls. “Let Dagger go, Bone Dome!” shouted Samia, sweeping her long sword across to catch Skullkrack. Without his hands, he was vulnerable, and could only dodge Samia’s flurry of twists, turns, sweeps and strikes, until finally she caught him which pushed him over the edge. His body splashed and sunk under the surface of a lava pool, and the hands around Dagger clattered to the floor. “Phew...” sighed Samia, “That was good of him to die so soon, this battle could’ve... been... nasty?...” “Hah!” shouted Skullkrack as his body rose up from the liquid, flames shooting out the bottom of his robe to propel him, and his flaming hands returning to him. “Demon of fire!” he repeated in a scream, “You cannot defeat me like that!” With his hands back, they glowed with power and unleashed a huge blaze of fire that Samia had to dive and roll to avoid. “Your friends seem to be left out.” stated Skullkrack, “The volcano Yumis shall keep them company!” With that, he fired several glowing spheres into the pool, and out crawled and climbed four orange creatures. All had huge orange bodies and hollow eyes, but were currently in liquid-like forms, their bodies dripping behind them. “Let’s take these hot-heads!” called Edwina, firing arrows at a two-headed Yumi but gasping as it went right through it. Samia slashed her sword down on one and split it in half, as she placed her sword back in its holder around her belt, the two puddles rose up, faces forming on the both of them. Before Samia could draw out her sword again, they were upon her, their bodies shifting into hard rock and burying her momentarily before they picked themselves up and beat her into submission. Edwina and Dagger were fighting off three others, a stringy Yumi, one large bulky Yumi, and the one with two heads, but their weapons went right through them, and as they had saw with Samia, cutting them completely would only multiply them. As Dagger feebly threw several throwing stars at two Yumis, Edwina fired a beam of magic at a high boulder, that collapsed and fell on top of the big one. “I think that worked.” smiled Edwina, “Dagger, aim for the-” She stopped talking as Dagger grabbed her and leapt aside as the two remaining drones stretched themselves to loom over the Resistors and pour out their hot bodies. The ground they fell on burned immensely and steam rose up immediately. “We can’t touch them in those forms.” stated Dagger, “Only when they’re rock hard.” “Speaking of rocks, I-” spoke Edwina, before being interrupted again. The crushed Yumi had crept up on them by slithering across the floor in a puddle, and then rose up behind them, hardened, and restrained them. “... think we’re trapped between a rock and a hard place.” amended Edwina, before she and Dagger were knocked out by the hardened fists of the other Yumis pummelling them. Helena had kept Lucia pinned against the wall and tore into her with her claws, Lucia waited for the right moment, and activated her rockets, shooting upwards and yanking Helena up with her, until they reached a rock sticking out of the wall which cracked against Helena’s skull since she was slightly higher than Lucia. She didn’t flinch for long, and frowned, before raising her gun and shooting Lucia from point blank range. She went hurtling down towards a lava pool and wouldn’t pull up in time, but Helena swooped down and caught her. “Helena... Thank you...” “Don’t mention it, I Mean That.” she replied, before swinging around and hurling Lucia all the way up. She went hurtling above Skullkrack and the higher area where the Resistors had fought and lost, and then crashed into the roof of the cave and fell back down, crashing not far from Skullkrack and followed by a barrage of boulders that had been dislodged. Helena rose up and landed next to Skullkrack, “How was that Master?” “Very good indeed... Take them to the pit...” Later on, Samia opened her eyes to Edwina and Dagger, both looking weak, sore but awake, and then to the surroundings. “Hey! Let us out!” she shouted, grabbing the bars of the yellow cage, but then noticing it was supported high above a wide pit of boiling magma, “On second thoughts, let us out Safely!” “No way!” laughed Helena, standing to the side of the pit and holding onto Lucia. “You’ve been a bother, Resistors, so I’ll tell you exactly how you’ll die. If I’d wanted to simply destroy the village, I could have done that already, but by coming here, you’ve given me exactly what I need to destroy the entire island so that none of those people escape.” “Ironic really.” laughed Helena, “You came here to save all those people, but you’ll be the ones who guarantee their deaths.” “With my spell, and you pure hearted children as my sacrifice, I’ll be able to enhance the destructive power of the lava, and raise the contents of this pit, but only within the diameter of it. The island will be destroyed, but I and Helena will remain safe from the lava until we take our leave.” “This is going to be so cool...” grinned Helena. “That’s enough talk, the time has come. Yumi: Its time for the Resistors to take a hot bath, lower the cage!” Skullkrack put his hands together, and began a chant, the lava below boiled furiously due to it, and the Yumi he’d instructed was slowly moving towards the mechanism for the cage. “Hey you!” shouted Edwina, to which the Yumi looked up and then pointed to itself, “Yeah you, you like fire, don’t you?” The Yumi nodded, and Edwina outstretched a hand and fired her plasma magic, “In that case, have a little on the house.” As the beam bore into the Yumi and made its body bigger and more muscular, Edwina turned to the others, “Guys, do something, I’m buying us time!” “Dagger.” instructed Samia, “Help me rock the cage, Lucia will have to contribute for this plan to work.” The two stood on either side, and took turns at pushing their weight against it, while Edwina concentrated to keep her magic on the Yumi. The cage swung to the sides, slowly at first, then increasingly faster and gaining more distance. Skullkrack broke off the chant as he suspected something, “Fool! Do I have to do everything?!” Before he walked towards the gears that would lower the cage, Samia’s sword came spiralling down, flew past Skullkrack and pierced the wall, barely missing him. Before he could recover, he dived to the floor, as several knives and throwing stars soared over his head and sprayed the wall in sharp weaponry. “Master!” shouted Helena, turning her attention to him, a mistake on her part as Lucia’s rocket packs altered direction and activated, the flames propelling Helena into a wall while making Lucia airborne. “Ugh...” she groaned, “You recovered quicker than I thought, I’ll have to knock you out a little more effectively!” “Just try it, I’ve noticed that you haven’t got your flame powers to fall back on this time, did your master not give you another dose?” “That was because he used up a lot of his power to give them to me the first time, and because of the explosion in Mount Shard, Lord Skullkrack foretold of my usefulness and gave me that power when the explosion occurred, transforming me into the Trailblazer you once fought, but now that’s its diminished, he instead rebuilt and improved me. I’m still better than you.” “Perhaps, but you’re a little bigmouth too, in explaining all that, your master is still in trouble and my friends are escaping as we, or should I say, as You speak.” With that, Lucia’s rose up, but Helena followed shortly after outstretching her wings. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you now and use one of the Yumis as a substitute for the sacrifice!” she screamed. “You’ll have to catch me first!” called Lucia. “No Helena!” shouted Skullkrack, “The victims must have good in their hearts or the spell will go wrong!” “Really?...” inquired Lucia quietly as she neared the swinging cage, but she gasped as she noticed something, “Guys! There’s a little flaw in your plan! The chain’s breaking!” The message was sent too late, as one of the chain links had been weakened by the constant pull of the swinging, it snapped, and there was a jolt, but the cage stopped where it was. The reason why was because Lucia was holding it up, but the weight was too much for her and her rocket packs were starting to weaken. “Throw the cage Lucia!” called Samia. “I can’t!” she yelled back, “You’ll fall into the lava, I need one good push for you to make it across!” “You can’t save your friends Sis! All four of you will drop into the lava at the same time!” As Helena charged up a huge blast from her gun arm, Edwina turned her attention away from the Yumi, “She Will save us, she’s just going to need your help, Guys! Push the cage as hard as you can!” As they rammed the right side of the cage, Edwina fired her magic at Helena, or more precisely, her wings, the flaming essence of them vanished and she lost control, spiralling into the left side of the cage with a lot of force. “Let go!” called Edwina at that moment, and Lucia threw the cage across, the three forces propelling it across the pit before it crashed. “Happy landings guys...” whispered Lucia, before offering a silent prayer for their success. The Yumi below was huge and muscular now, and it flexed its new muscles and formed a grin on its face... and then the cage squashed it. Helena went spiralling across the ground and collapsed weakly, while the crash had broken a few bars, allowing the Resistors to escape. “Yumis!” shouted Skullkrack in frustration, “Get those Resistors!” “We’re ready for them this time.” said Samia, shifting her body to the side to avoid a rocky punch from the Yumi that had burned through the bottom of the cage and attacked. “We’ve got you sussed Yumi, tell your buddies that the next time you bump into them.” said Samia. Lucia dived down and grabbed its stretched out hand, and swung it round several times before letting go so that it was crashed into the others of its kind, its huge size making it hit all of them so that they fell over the edge and into the pit. “Now would be a good time.” added Lucia. “You fools!” shouted Skullkrack, “You’ve sacrificed too many evil hearted beings! The volcano is going to fill up with lava and destroy us all!” Helena groaned as she awoke, but then slipped over the edge due to the rumbling. “Helena!” shouted Lucia, reaching out for her but missing. As Helena plummeted, Lucia turned away, “I can’t fly down there, my jet pack is too low on power to save Helena and escape this place...” Unknown to Lucia, Helena was able to grab hold of a rock sticking out of the pit wall, just above the rising lava, she swung herself into a hidden cavern and ran fast before lava filled it up, “Not over Sister, I’ll get you yet...” “At least you Resistors will be destroyed.” grinned Skullkrack, before a shower of stars from Dagger flew at him and pinned many parts of his robe against the wall of the cave. “Samia, grab hold of me, Edwina, get Dagger out of here.” instructed Lucia. With that, Lucia activated her jets and shot upwards, while Edwina did the same with her magical floating platform. Skullkrack had been desperately pulling out the stars, but by the time he was done, the lava was already at the top of the pit and spilling out. “My spell has made the lava dangerous even for me, I have to escape...” said Skullkrack as his hands circled around his lower half to create a flame edged portal that took him through from the bottom up. Unfortunately for him, the portal was slow compared to the rise in lava, and before the portal could warp his head through, the lava rushed up and engulfed it. “Noooo-” The four Resistors rushed to the high cliffs, where Lucia simply rose above Edwina, dropped Samia onto her platform, and blasted away, lifting a boulder and carrying it with her. “The Resistors have failed...” sighed the elder. “Don’t count us out yet.” said Samia, “I think Lucia knows what she’s doing...” “I can’t risk throwing this, I might miss or break it, I’ve got to...” With that Lucia returned to the volcano, about to blow and sink the island, and dropped into the opening, closing it up with the rock behind her. “Lucia...” whispered a worried Edwina. “That won’t work, the rock will just be blasted up by the lava, its got to come out somehow...” frowned Dagger, hiding his concern. Just then, an explosion was heard, making most of the Findians gasp, but it wasn’t a big one. From around the other side of the volcano, Lucia came hurtling out, lava gushing out behind her, she circled around and cleared the blast of magma, which was now splashing into the sea instead of the village and island. Lucia landed, and fell to her hands and knees, her body glowing red from the heat. “Phew, made it. I had to make a new path for that lava to run, the boulder was to prevent it all from bubbling out the top and consuming the village... So what do you think?...” “I think you’re a little hot headed, that plan was crazy...” frowned Edwina, “But you did real good Lucia, and the people here and surely their descendants will always be grateful for that...” As the people of Findion and the Resistors celebrated, in another volcano far east of the island, Skullkrack fell through his portal, a little lava pouring in but not a massive amount. He picked his body off the body and stood up, before looking to see Helena crash through the roof and land in the dormant volcano. “Lord Skullkrack, you made it, sort of...” His robe was tattered and parts of his skull were cracked or on fire. “We failed... Now the warrior to be born in Findion will grow up and probably oppose us someday.” “At least its no immediate threat.” shrugged Helena, hoping for forgiveness. “No, but those annoying Resistors are. We must make plans to destroy them, they will be made to pay for this... I swear it...” End Back to “Plantation” Click to read the next story: "The Klatzen Army” Back to “Demons and Disasters” Back to the Library