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Owner Pose
The Kid     Colford Cauldron lives up to the name. It's hot, black with soot and grime, and a foul stench like a witch's brew permeates the air, the sharp pungency of sulphur especially prevalent. Charred, bleached bones of creatures large and small dot the slopes amidst scorched trees, bearing no greenery upon them. Once a mere dormant mountain overtaken by the Wilds, the Calamity ripped open long-dry arteries of molten rock and let them issue forth fire and smoke once more, rendering the place barren.

    And yet, life stands upon the cliffs.

    The Kid is here by the warpgate, neckerchief wrapped around his mouth as a makeshift filter from the ash that chokes the air. He is geared up as usual, sitting upon a felled dead log. Some odd contraption sits on his lap, looking akin to a forge's bellows... but with a magnifying glass sitting atop the nozzle. With him is the pale-faced man and girl Zulf and Zia. Both are geared up for long travels, bulging backpacks upon their shoulders. They're also prepared for danger, with Zia bearing a holstered repeater at her hip, and Zulf carrying a carbine slung over his shoulder.

    As everyone arrives, Kid gives a gruff nod and stands. He's even more taciturn than usual today. Without a word, he goes to the edge of the cliff they all stand on, which causes the mountain to respond to his City Crest of his, pulling up a new path from the blackened mountainside. A thicket of burned trees stands in his way, but he raises those strange bellows and squeezes it. Not air, but gouts of flame issue from the nozzle, finishing the job the Cauldron started. The trees burn to ash immediately, clearing the route.

    "I'm sorry about him," Zia says to everyone. "He's been really quiet for a while... I think he's worried about Zulf and I." The man himself sniffs, and then makes a face like he wish he hadn't. "It's noble of him, but he has no need to be. The Wilds have held together well enough that I expect the Ura caverns that thread under it will have held. We'll be able to take them and circumvent the dangers."
Alexis A volcano. If there is one environment Alexis knows very well, it's hot places like volcanos. She grew up near one, a lot of Fire types live in them, she's spent a lot of time around them in general. It helps that she also has a Typhlosion, which are known as 'Volcano' pokemon for good reason. He's not going to be bothered by the heat and ash as they walk out of the warpgate. Alexis has a pair of Go-Goggles on to protect her eyes from any of the gunk in the air as well.

She gives a wave to the group in general, then shrugs a little at Zia. "He's gonna worry no matter what ya say. Just how some folks are. Besides, doesn't hurt if he's focused on what he's gotta do for use to get through here because of it, right?"
Flamel Parsons     Parsons looks a little hot under the collar. But you know, literally. Everything here is heated up, and so he's decided to swap to an entirely different aesthetic of Vague yet Menacing Government Agent. He's come here today in an elaborate fire proximity suit with a heavy gasmask attached, looking like the kind of secret agent that investigates hidden UFO crashes and otherworldly viral outbreaks.

    "Oh, worrying might be right! I mean, smell is one of the most psychologically impactful senses, so the sensation of going through the more familiar tunnel structures with a death-associated smell could be pretty psychologically damaging! I can help out with that if it comes down to it though." Parsons, always friendly and always... Sssssupportive? Eesh, he's not so good at holding back the honesty thing though.

    "Caverns, caverns..." He mutters, planting fingers on each temple and releasing a pulse of psychic energy every few seconds. He's trying to reveal the memory in the ground, such as it were, of where people were walking; if this works out, hopefully, it should show common footprints and display the usual paths people took, which will ideally be a lead on those caverns.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa has been helping the good folks at the Bastion since before the universe went barf. So here she was showing no sign of honestly slowing down right? She wasn't about to stop now she started it and was going to finish it. She would finds herself exiting about the warp gate. A volcano she could make so mahy puns but she does not as she falls in with Alexis and looks to the locals such a Ziaa and the Kid.

"Hey so you got us a shot cut that could avoid some fights? Sounds good to me."
Priscilla     Hot, grimy, smelly and sulfurous are things that Priscilla typically just doesn't do. Any combination of two of those things is already testing her patience, but minutes out of the warpgate, she already looks like she wishes she hadn't shown up at all.

    Perhaps she should have expected as much from a place named with the word 'Cauldron' (and maybe she did to an extent, given the lack of sweating to death in a big fluffy dress today), but she can only put up so much of a stoic front before the crossbreed decides that pretending it doesn't faze her isn't worth it, and abruptly becomes the center of a teeny tiny vortex of chill wind, replete with little flakes of (pretty much instantly vapourizing) snow and enough cold that 'cold' is the only thing one can smell. Screw this.

    "Such positivity can only improve thine rate of progress, Lady Zia, but pray do not tie thineself to too many preconceptions as of yet. We knoweth well that the Ura people art alive and partially coordinated, but there remaineth the plausible outcome that they hath been driven from many sections of their former home for unusability; especially if this mountain hath once again been flooded with molten earth." Certainly though, Priscilla hopes Zia is right as well. As usual, she heads up at the front of the group with the Kid, aiding in defoliation efforts with the obvious, though her ability to scan for underground entrances is pretty much limited to sight.
The Kid     "I suppose he is," Zia says in response to Alexis. "I wish he wouldn't though. He has enough to worry about." She gives Alexis a look, before continuing. "You've been helping him since the start. Please, keep an eye on him for me while I'm gone?"

    Meanwhile, Flamel tries to be 'supportive.' Zulf just gives the man a long, confused look before carrying on. A man whose mind you leapt into to tackle his most powerful trauma without permission makes for a poor conversation partner. Luckily, the earth is feeling much more talkative! He feels a lot of... well, not entirely footprints, but signs of life and movement, more than you would expect from a scorching volcano. Recent too, so it can't all be things from before the Calamity. But there's also something else, far below. Something exposed by the Calamity. It's... big, he can tell even from this light touch.

    Zulf look to Kotone and nods. "If I can get them to listen to reason, they should be willing to turn over their Core. That would allow us to complete it. Rucks told me what the Bastion was for... and though I still believe that the Ura deserve to know who caused the Calamity, the knowledge that it can be fixed should be enough to mollify them."

    Zia looks to Priscilla as she talks (and beholds her little arctic vortex with a hint of envy) and nods. "You're right. But we have a good idea if where they might be. You can see it from here, look." She points to the horizon. It's hard to see through the heat haze and smoke, but a particularly large chunk of land floats high in the sky. "Rucks thinks that that is the Tazel Terminals. The Ura homeland. It used to be underground, but... anyway! Since they've been coming down from there, there's probably a way up. Zulf thinks we'll likely run into a patrol on the way."

    "Quiet back there," Kid hisses. He draws his bow as the group comes up to a rocky outcropping. There is an odd slithering coming from the other side... he rolls out, taking a knee and drawing the string, but is met with an oddly... human scream. And then vines erupt from volcanic soil and attempt to ensnare him.

    "Bootlicker!" he shouts, grappling with them as something raises up from behind the rocks. It's like a cactus sprouted the head of some horrid insect. A spiny body, broken up into segments, with a wide maw framed with powerful jaws. It begins to wriggle over towards the Kid, as the group erupts up around him. Many green, spiny creatures with single, unblinking eyes begins to home on the party. "Stinkeyes too! Watch out, they got tough skin!"
Alexis Alexis gives Zia a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "I've got no plans of stopping now. You just be careful too. Let's go Scorch." "Typhlosion." The badger-like pokemon leans over Alexis to nudge closer to Zia. <Maybe someone should keep an eye on here to~~Ow!> Only to yelp as Alexis grabs one of his small ears and yoinks him to follow. "Com'n, you. Stop being such a Brock."

With flame badger in tow it takes her a moment to catch up with the rest of the group as Kid snarls out a halt. Which usually means... yup, there be monsters here.

Alexis raises a brow a bit. Bootlicker? Stinkeye? "And people complain about Pokemon names." Oh well. "Tough skin, huh?" But look at those big, unblinking eyes. The trainer motions at the Stinkeyes as she has an idea. "Scorch, use Swift!"
He gives her an odd look for the non-fire attack. Sure it's one he knows, but...

"You heard him, tough skin. They're probably use to the heat. So aim for the eyes!"

Oh, well that makes sense. Scorch generates a small swarm of star-like projectiles and sends them hurtling at the Stinkeyes', well, eyes. The other reason Alexis picked that attack, it's highly accurate. Good for when you want to hit a specific spot on specific targets.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa says "Right then I like to avoid fighting when I can. I hope that's the case on that Zulf either way we'll have your back as best we can on this. She looks again to Zulf and muses a bit. She did bring a load out of riot control gear with her so she has some options this time right? She grows silent. Then comes the boot licker? holy hell and stink eyes? She takes the wanings in hand and moves to do what she can she'll fall in with Alexis as she she moves to pull out a new SMG since the last one melted due to a spell from Miari. She take a fee carefully aimed shots to back up Alexis as she thinks up a better plan of going for vunrable points.

"I got your back Alexis, goiung for the eyes!"
Priscilla     Priscilla squints off into the distance at the floating chunk of rock, trying very hard to make out how large exactly it is meant to be. Considering the distance, the poor atmospheric quality, and the lack of points of reference, though, for all she knows it could be the size of a house or the size of a small city. In the end, she has to figuratively shrug her shoulders and trust Zia on this one. She's the expert here, after all.

    "I very much hope so, Sir Zulf." Priscilla says instead, with grave sincerity. She may have threatened to atomize the poor guy a while back (albeit, when he was punching an old man and destroying the Bastion at the time), but there seems to be be little to no trace of old hostility in her voice. It's the truth. She would absolutely like him to be able to talk the Ura down without a problem, and he's clearly put his older feelings behind him; at least to the extent necessary to be productive.

    That said, she doesn't quite believe it plausible that they'll get out of the sneak attack with words. The freakish, spiny, cactus-like carapacians don't exactly look receptive to reason. Practically the instant the vines catch to the Kid's limbs, even while he's still issuing his warning, Priscilla turns her chosen tool of deforestation to the grappling tendrils in less than the blink of an eye; her iconic great scythe, in this instance.

    A wave of black and silver cavorts through the tangle of squeezing vines, leaving gushes of rotting plant matter in its wake as if it'd decapitated a nest of snakes instead, before the blade wheels low to the ground, and sweeps in a massive, near-full circle around Priscilla, right at ankle level, just like it's technically made for. The effect is much like . . . well . . . a scythe, through . . . plants.
Flamel Parsons     "You know, I'm trying to scan for footprints, but I'm picking up a lot of... not? Not footprints? They're all... spread out and huge. Looks like the Calamity brought it up. Weeeeeeird..." He shakes his head. "Well, there's enough stuff intact here for me to maybe get a path to the cavern if I can get some more data and push on a little further..."

    He's muttering and examining psychic traces when the Kid suddenly trips on this ecological ambush. "Augh! Eyes!" The dangerous spikes look MENACING! It looks like Priscilla and the Kid have the Bootlicker handled, in a sense, so he decides to focus on that particular target. "Big ominous eye symbols are supposed to mean /vague/ menace, not /stabbing/ menace!"

    He slams fingers onto the sides of his helmet again, and launches an array of massive, translucent telekinetic hands. They reach out, and attempt to grab the stinkeyes, seeming to ignore the huge spikes entirely. He holds them still for the shots, if he can, and attempts a brutal telekinetic CRUSH on those he gets the opportunity to. Their skin may be tough, but he expects they're built to resist gnawing from predators using those spikes, or low-surface-area pressure from weapons, not an all-direction crush from telekinetic force.
The Kid     Swift and fast bullets are fine ideas for dealing with the Stinkeyes. The projectiles rip into the eyeballs, an organ that no amount of evolution can make truly tough. The damage rips them apart from the inside and causes them to pop into noxious fumes. No wonder how they got the name. Those behind them seem to learn their lesson though, closing their eyelids against the assault. Those are still tough, and the projectiles bounce off.

    However, they've never had to deal with crushing pressure. Most of the time, no predator would be stupid enough to bite down on a spiky, smelly thing like them. So when Flamel's telekinesis begins to squeeze on them, those eyes open and flick about in an eerily human panic before they pop from within, foul innards bursting from the socket.

    Meanwhile, Priscilla gets to work on gardening. Kid is cut free by the whilring scythe, and the Bootlicker's attempts to grab her also are swiftly thwarted by the same. Cutting low slashes at its sections, but it just... dislocates them, sending them rolling down the mountain as it carries on. What kind of evolution leads to this defence mechanism? Kid goes for his bow again and draws the string...

    Only for the twitching head of the creature to pop in barrage of gunfire.

    Zulf and Zia stand there, weapons smoking as the Bootlicker collapses. Zulf slings his weapon, bearing a stern look, but his hands are shaking. Zia looks at her own gun like she's never seen it before. "Good work everyone," Kid says with a slight cough as he dusts off some stray vines and ash. "Let's keep movin'."

    The ongoing journey across the regrown cliffs is a treacherous one. Running jumps are often called for to avoid magma flows, and the mountain's rumblings occasionally dislodge stones from the path, making it far narrower. But finally, the Shard is in sight... at least 25 feet above them on a sheer slope. "Path'll probably wind us all the way up there 'ventually. Unless anyone has a bright idea?" Kid asks, looking to the group.
Alexis It's a dangerous obstacle course of a path, but Alexis just sees this as a challenge. Jumping over lava, avoiding crumbling rocks, a dangerous path just makes things more exciting until the object of their intents comes into view at a distance.

In response to the question she just shrugs a bit. "Could maybe fly up there with a pokemon, but splitting up usually isn't a good idea. Nor do we know how this place is going to act once we take the Shard. Most of the places we've been seem to get... upset." Or start falling apart entirely.
Flamel Parsons     The big translucent hands shake themselves off, then begin to fade away... "Well! That was unexpected." He looks specifically at Zia and Zulf. Those were the most unexpected ones there, using those guns like that. "Yeah, what he said! Very good work getting this done quick!"He gives a thumbs-up, a gesture he hopes is stabilizing and confidence-boosting to them. He seems in good cheer again, setting off onto the path. And when it comes to platforming, Parsons is ALL OVER that! His Levitation skill gets put on full and proper display with dramatic glides and leaps!

    Once they reach the line of sight here, he takes a moment to think... "Hey, I can think of a way! Hey, First! Get your scythe out flat!" If she follows along, his plan seems to be to LEAP onto the flat of the blade and levitate there. "Give me a toss up there. I'll lock onto it with my telekinetics and then yank it down once we're all back together. That way there's no splitting up and we get a headstart on getting out of here, like how Alexis is worried about!"

    If she goes along with it, he'll do exactly as he said: Launch high up in a parabolic glide, latch a big translucent hand around the shard, descend and return to the group, and THEN yank the shard away and towards him!
Priscilla     Flicking trails of plant-blood off her blade, Priscilla stares in mild but prolonged bafflement at the escape mechanism that carries the ill-intentioned creature back down the slope, lasting up until the point the Ura blow its head off. The wildlife of this world never ceases to perplex her, even factoring out how it's still flourishing on all these disconnected floating isles.

    "Let us limit the length of path me must adhere ourselves to." Priscilla responds at the sight of the shard. She already doesn't want to be here longer than absolutely necessary, and wandering into further attacks just seems to be begging for worse luck than the relatively mild nature of the first. Even her inexplicable ability to ignore the conceptual reason for the invention of shoes seems to be getting strained here, having to navigate enough terrain that involves combinations of jagged rocks, flowing lava, horrid thorns, and volcanic glass. Thus, she abides by Flamel's idea. One would call it a crackpot idea, but that sort of describes all of them.

    Either way, her scythe is pretty damn big; easily a meter across even at its most maneuverable dimensions. He should have no trouble standing on it, nor really keeping his balance, for the uncanny degree of near-gyroscopic stillness Priscilla seems to be able to handle it with. Just before she launches him upwards, using the leverage of the whole haft to put a very surprising amount of strength behind it, she does stop to ask: "What exactly dost thou maketh of these 'not footprints'? Thou had not the time to explain previously."
Flamel Parsons     "Well, it might have been the bootlicker. Bootlickers? It might have been something like that, that we were just dealing with a little while ago!" Parsons says, casually conversing while Priscilla aims and readies. "Or normally I'd assume it's one of the hidden routes taken by the secret race of shapeshifting lizardmen who exert a mysterious influence over federal politics, but there aren't any federal politics to influence here these days." As she pulls back, he says, "So if it wasn't what we just fought, there might be something big running underground here."

    HMMMM.

    He launches high, and at the top of his arc, latches the Shard with his telekinetic grip. He glides his way back down to the group, landing heavily, and then uses his distant link to pull the Shard down, letting it float its way over here... And being well ready to start dashing out!
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa keeps going for the eyes, it seems to work as she sees some of them. However the other beast learn and close their eye lids, damn thesy learn fast. She'll have ot adapt rapidly too but there seems to another way to deal with it as Flammel use shis mind powers to deal with them. The others have hanled the rest and she looks back to the party for a moment.

"Humm I have some ideas to get up but it will end up just being me so it's not so good of an idea. Wait does anyone have a long rope I could get up and feed it down?" 5R
She looks to Priscilla for a moment.

She looks to Flamel and then shrugs, his plans do work fairly often so what's the worst that could happen, she'll hang back andlet him get ot work with the plan.
The Kid     "Prolly just all the life out here. Colford Cauldron was always thrivin', even back when it was active, far as we could tell," Kid explains to Priscilla as she sets up the Flamelball Special. "We Caels came pokin' 'round here when we first arrived. Learned to harness the power of the world. 's how things like this came around." He pats the flame-spewing bellows he was using as an example.

    And lo, Flamel is launched into the air to snag the Shard! Grabbing it is not too much trouble. But once it is dislodged from its perch, Alexis' concerns come true. A deep shudder runs through the mountain, followed by an angry roar. The peak erupts, more violently than before, as the smoky plume becomes darker, lightning coursing through it. The shakes become more extreme, prompting the three from the Bastion to take a knee until it steadies.

    But unfortunately, it destroys the rebuilt path, and sends the party tumbling down the slope.

    "C'mon c'mon c'mon!" Kid shouts as he tumbles, holding up his City Crest until a new path forms under him. It's already starting to fall apart as it is built as he gets Zulf and Zia back on their feet. "C'mon, we're making for the base!" he shouts, pointing towards a spot on the western face.

    And then, the mountain's cry is drowned out by the cry of Peckers. The hateful corvids swoop down upon the party, unaffected by the tremors. They seem especially focussed on whomever is holding the Shard. Stinkeyes erupt from the ground and begin converging also.

    The mountain is clearly not going to relinquish its prize easily.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa watches as Fammel's crazy plan works, or works for the most part. The Mountain seems to be not in a very good way now. AS he drops she ses that it's time to get going. She'll run after the kid.

"GO go go!"

She doesn't want to think the mountain might have ... a mind of it's own. It can't right? She kepe moging and will make to carry someone if it's needed to she should be able to. The Pecker's come flying at them and she seems to notice they are going for the one with the shard.
Flamel Parsons     A huge erruption! Something clicks in Parsons' head. Was he detecting MAGMA that whole time? He takes a moment, distracted by attempting to analyze the nature of what he just ran into. It's only when the Kid shouts for him to run that he seems to realize that the place is coming down, since he didn't fall over; after all, he was floating! Parsons hoists the Shard under one arm like a football, and makes a mad levitating dash for the base of the mountain as well, leaping and dodging and diving!

    Oh god Peckers. Oh goddddd! He can't get that offhand up to his head, so his psychic ability is halved! Planting his other hand near his palm on the helmet, he tries to summon up a psychic shield, but the sheer overwhelming swarm of peckers, and the dangerous spines of the floating Stinkeyes, begin lancing through it, causing a blunted psychic bleedback, forming heavy, glowing contusions on his body that spread in painful spiderweb patterns shaped like nerves.

    "Uh! Someone else hold this please!!" He calls out, trying to get someone to either keep it -- and sustain the damage of the birds and spines themselves -- or to take them out and let him run in peace! It's REALLY difficult to playform when you get stunned out of mid-air! And it was already hard to platform down the side of an errupting, collapsing volcano!!
Alexis There goes the volcano... and the path beneath their feet. "Sometimes I hate being right!" Alexis manages to shout, even as she's digging her heels into the slope to keep from sliding down too fast. Scorch just rolls up in a ball with Defense Curl, pinballing along the mountainside. Eventually they slide down to where the Kid is forming a new if brief path, and hurrying to follow.

But not before Alexis grabs another pokeball and tosses it up. "Guess this is gonna take some flying after all. Go, Skypion!" The name makes a bit more sense once the Gliscor appears, being a large purple scorpion-like thing, but it has wings stretched between it's arms and bat-like ears too. "Slow them down with Sandstorm!"

The strange critter chirrs in response, and starts beating his wings, whipping up swirling blasts of pebbles and grit hurtling towards the Peckers. It's only going to do nick and scratch damage at best, but more importantly, it should obscure the birds' vision some, making it harder for them to swarm on whoever is holding the Shard effectively.
Priscilla     Briefly, Priscilla feels the urge to scoff at the idea that the mountain would somehow disapprove of them retrieving the Shard --being a mountain and all-- but, at the same time, she has no difficulty recalling several other occasions where it seemed like the world itself objected to the crucial pieces to the Bastion being taken from it. She had wondered before, on and off, whether it might have something to do with the City Crest, with how the islands are held up in the first place, or the nature of the Shards themselves, but much like Parsons, she finds herself with much better things to be thinking about the instant her misgiving frown is rewarded with full-on peals of thunder and shattering earth.

    This again.

    Seeing the Psychonaut so overwhelmed, Priscilla quickly passes by him, barely touching the rapidly gathering stones along the path with an extremely lengthy jump, and holding her hands out on request, she snatches the hefty stone from him; quickly enough that, for a moment, the Peckers should have trouble recognizing that it's gone. "Focus upon protecting thineself for the moment!" she shouts, before skidding to a stop in the loose gravel, and taking in a deep breath.

    Timing it with the sandstorm sent flying by Alexis' Gliscor, Priscilla unleashes the low pressure, area saturation version of her breath weapon, exhaling a glittering plume of icy crystal dust that glows all shades of ghastly, ominous blue. It catches into the wind whipped up by the Pokemon's wings, and spreads into a swirling wall of ghostly blue fire as the unstable particles burn up into raw, searing magic over the space of several seconds. With that to cover a retreat, Priscilla grabs Parsons under her other arm, and then books it, skipping over the stones at a speed still sufficient to catch up to the Caelondian and the two Ura, whilst Parsons can focus on using his psychic shield.
The Kid     Barriers don't do much against Peckers, something Cael and Ura both could tell you. Sharp beaks rip and tear at Flamel's barrier, worming their way in to nip at his suit and flesh. Zia ducks in to help, offering to take the Shard... but the volcano shakes again, and a nest suddenly lands in her hands, carrying a single egg. She's so startled that she hugs it close on instinct. Thankfully, Priscilla swoops in to take it!

    Alexis brings out Skypion, who kicks up Sandstorm! In these conditions, it's more akin to an ash storm though, but that doesn't dilute its effectiveness. The Peckers are weighed down by the microparticles getting between feathers, limiting their flight. They and the Stinkeyes both are blinded too, keeping them from properly attacking the group. And then Priscilla adds in her own magic, somehow icy and fiery at the same time. It tags many of the Peckers, spooking them and sending them flying away, chased by gunfire from Kid and Zulf. The Stinkeyes, reluctant to move with eyes open, remain there and let the party flee.

    Finally, they reach the base, surrounded by more burned foliage that shifts into fresh plantlife the further away from the peak they are. Zulf looks around and points to a stone etched with symbols. "The caverns are this way. This is where we part." Zia, still holding that nest and egg close, looks to everyone and offers a smile, her eyes saying many things at once. "I'll see you all later." They both turn to go, before Kid croaks out, "Wait." The normally tactiturn boy has a hand out, and a voice choked with things he wants to say. Finally, all he can manage is, "... be safe." The two pale natives smile and nod to him before heading off, disappearing into the bush.

    Kid stares after them, before shaking his head and smacking it with an open palm. "C'mon. Old man said there's a Skyway panel this way. Cut through!" Out comes those bellows again, which he uses the scorch through the dread trees to open the route to the live ones. Then, out comes the machete to start hacking through. While behind them, the magma flow crawls down the mountain, dogging their heels
Alexis "Keep in touch!" Alexis shouts after the two Ura as they break off to pursue their other secondary objective.

Then back to the matter at hand. They still need to get through this gnarly mess to find the Skyway access, and even without the attacking wildlife they've got the angry volcano nagging their backs like a lurching inevitablity in that lava. With the attacking threats gone Skypion hovers over her head, just in case.

"No time to waste being neat about this. Everyone stand back a moment, this is gonna get intense." Alexis notes which direction the Kid indicated, and directs her other pokemon that way complete with Dramatic Moment Pointing a lot of trainers seem to prefer. "Scorch. BLAST BURN."

"Tyyyyyyy--" The collar of flames around Scorch's neck flares up to such intensity his entire body seems to start glowing. Which isn't too far off, it's that wavering visual effect you get with large amounts of heat radiating in the air. Embers and smoke whisp around the corners of his mouth as he gets down on all fours to use his claws to brace himself.

"--PHLOSION!" A massive stream of flaming wrath erupts from his maw almost like a giant laser cannon of fiery death, aimed at clearing a path from them as far as the elemental firebeam can reach.
Flamel Parsons     Parsons finally gets his hands free, which allows him to slam the other hand back to his head, granding him some considerably increased power. "Thanks!" He calls out. He's stumbling a little though. A bit too much damage bled through his shielding. I mean, you don't name something "pecker" unless it has some penetrating qualities. Wait. Wait.

    Wait.

    No, let's not focus on that. He tilts his head curiously, but positively, as The Kid actually initiates a verbal exchange for once. That development is... Interesting. Hmmm. "Cut through? Uhhh... Dammit, I can't cut. I can try blasting though! Our first's the cutting master here though!" With both hands now free, he can rev up a huge psionic laser-beam for a few precious seconds while the magma crawls their way, and then blast it forward in the vague direction the kid indicated. It's not going to blow away the thick forest on its own, but it'll get a lot of the small-fry plant life gone before the heavy clearers get there.

    And then Parsons himself is off, levi-dashing forward as fast as he can go, trying to make it to that Skyway panel before the magma catches up!
Kotone Yamakawa the party is making a break for it the peckers come, most of them seem to be focuing on the person who has the hard but thanks to flamel's barrier it buy the rest of them enough time to get moving to help him. she also notices that zia's carrying an egg, pris has the shgard haneld and kotone keeps running she'll fire a few pot shots at the bird as they go and anything else that hrass the party as they make for the base. They are almost there so to speak.

"Right, Zia! Good luck to you both."

Shge will gall in with the Kid and he makes for the skyway she does move to drop a small recon drone behind to watch the area but who knows how long the small cam bot will last. Either way she's moving out abnd looking to Flammel and Alexis.

"Nver gets boring does it?"
Priscilla     "I shalt accept thine thanks whence we art all safely away from here." Priscilla replies to Flamel, carrying him quarterback-style as long as she needs to, until the aggressive fauna (and flora? flaura?) fall off into the distance and give up.

    'All' is perhaps a bit of a poor choice.

    Despite knowing very well what it would come to, Priscilla hesitates at the moment Zulf and Zia break to depart. She had known that they wouldn't stick around forever, but somehow, leaving right now, so suddenly and without ceremony, seems jarring. Wrong, even. It seems like it shouldn't be allowed to happen without the presence of many others who had come to like the two, never mind in such a manner that it puts their poor Caelondian guide totally on the spot, and leaves them with so much time pressure that there's scarcely an opportunity to give a word of goodbye. She doesn't quite know why, but seeing the two disappear off into the tunnel, leaving them totally to their own devices, twists Priscilla up a little inside. It might be worry, but she knows how irrational that is, given just how capable the pair had become.

    Unfortunately, she can't do anything about an encroaching magma floe. Not from an awakening volcano at their backs. She takes just a second to place her hand on the Kid's shoulder, squeezing it lightly before pulling him back around to the task at hand, and then she can only keep tight hold of the Shard as the others set to nuking the pathway clear of foliage, advancing as closely as she can without being directly in its path.

    "It is mine hope that we go not terribly long without sight of those two again. I admit, I hath grown fond of . . . well, at least the one of them."
The Kid     Kid sharply exhales through his nose as Priscilla lays a hand on his should. "'m fine. They will be too. Let's go." A real man's man, or trying to be anyway.

    Scorch's Blast Burn does what the name implies. It blasts right through the dead trees much faster than Kid's Bellows can manage. The live Wilds proves to be a little more resilient, but flames do begin to spread quickly through the dry plants. What it can't manage, Kid and Flamel deal with via machete and blasting lasers into the undergrowth. Finally, the Skyway panel is unearthed, and Kid manages to get it going. "Go go go!" he yells, waving everyone through before taking off himself.

    From their vantage point, they can look down on Colford Cauldron. It trembles, shakes... and extinguishes suddenly. The smoke stops coming, the magma vents empty, and they can see down through it. It's totally extinguished. But far below, a single pinprick of light can be seen. Flamel thought he was feeling the flow of magma, but what he felt was something exposed by the Calamity. The heart of the world, torn open and laid bare, pulsing and beating with life still. Wounded, but alive.