HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
this has been sitting in my finished folder for a year.
russell was talking about crocodilian nesting habits in science and that made me think of volcanoes for some reason then i remembered an awesome fact about them. my knowledge of volcanoes is a bit rusty and really the ony ones im familiar with are vesuvius and eyjafjallajokull. kinda went with eyjafjallajokull more because the climate would be most similar (high up, cold, but still a fucking volcano)
Grunts were loyal to a fault, like Growlithe. They would follow the admins everywhere and do whatever told, even at the cost of dignity. Not a single peon questioned building a bridge across Mt. Chimney's crater. It was safe. Tabitha created the blueprints and Courtney surveyed the area.
Heat fogged Maxie's glasses and built-in wipers kept them clean. He patted himself on the back for such a clever invention. He approached Tabitha, who monitored the machinery. "Is it ready for the meteorite?"
"Yes, Leader Maxie." He looked up from the interface and leaned closer. "Of all the grunts, Carmine has potential. The others follow their example, and they know what they're doing. Adam is a close second, but he needs directions repeated," Tabitha mentioned nonchalantly. If Tabitha deemed them useful, it was a high compliment. "I, of course, mentored them," he added.
"Carmine," Maxie called after the grunt in charge of setup, "You've done well." He wasn't flattering them, the bridge really did come along great.
Carmine saluted their leader. Their hood fell over their eyes and quickly pulled it back. "Thank you, sir. But it was because of Tabitha and Courtney that I― we, succeeded."
The redhead nodded. That was a given, he chose his admins for a reason. Modesty was a trait he appreciated in small doses. Carmine had a good level for someone their rank, but too much for someone of their capability. "Nonsense," Maxie waved a hand, "You must take more pride." He patted their shoulder and turned to leave.
Two grunts came down the artificial pathway. "Sir," one said and both saluted, "Russell and I found a path that leads down to the lava."
"Me and Akane thought you might want to know," Russell finished.
Maxie asked, "I assume you scanned the path for stability?"
"Yep," Akane nodded quickly.
"Very well," The leader readjusted his glasses. "Akane, Russell, lead the way."
It wasn't far from the infrastructure, but the entrance was over the side of the cone. The trail looped through a crack in the crater and down the inside to under the overpass by a few meters. Maxie held onto the rock in his descent. Akane and Russell flew without a single care. He envied and cursed their energy. They stopped at the ledge, opening to let their leader through.
Lava shimmered under its own glow and illuminated everything the sun couldn't reach through the soot. "Beautiful," Maxie said in awe. "Thank you for showing me this. Get Courtney down here to collect samples."
His underlings scurried away, leaving him alone with the view. Above him countless grunts weaved patterns like Combee. He broke off a piece of tuff to compare with some samples from the Cave of Origin. That tuff was bleached white like sand and bones, but this tuff was like terra cotta, blood, and rust.
While inspecting the piece he dropped it into the lava. It fizzled and popped until it reverted to its primordial liquid form. Maxie crouched down and pried another piece of tuff from the ledge.
Maxie tapped the side of his glasses. HUD, another clever thing he added along with wipers, blared warnings of volatile activity. He cursed himself at trusting grunts to differentiate stable rock from a path no more permanent than a sandbar.
He stopped to turn and misplaced footing. His boot crumbled an edge and pulled him down to the glowing pool. His blood boiled in rage at his stupidity. Then, it literally boiled as he got closer to a warm death. He roared in frustration.
A jagged piece of rock was temporary sanctuary. His hands tore themselves raw and his sweater snagged on strata. He clung to it, like a thread of fate, soon to be snapped like his sweater's threads. Maxie caught his breath. His head was swimming with noise, or maybe it actually was swimming. No, he hadn't fallen yet, he wasn't swimming. He couldn't think straight.
"Leader Maxie!"
He heard his name, a word so deeply ingrained into his mind, he'd answer in his sleep. The owner was a short figure with purple hair. Good, she came.
A voice he didn't recognize in his stupor said, "By Arceus!"
Like Arceus could help him now. Heatran and Groudon, maybe, but not Arceus. This was out of its domain. As a man of science, he did not abide to the superstitious notion that a single Pokemon created the universe. Groudon evaporated clouds with great concentrations of heat in such a precise manner, it was easier to say it 'controlled' weather than explaining the full effect. That did not make Groudon a god. In fact, if Groudon was at his location, it would only worsen his situation unless the beast carried him out of the cauldron itself.
"SIR!" said a grunt.
"MEDIC!" another cried. That was just stupid.
A very young voice cautiously asked, "Maxie?"
Had that child had come to stop him? For a moment, he was concerned more with the child's mental well-being than his embarrassing situation.
Somewhere along his fall his glasses went ahead of him. All he saw above was red and blue streaks reaching out. He tried to grab them, but they were too far away.
Blue didn't belong. Blue was supposed to be far, far away. Farther than the streaks were.
Maxie knew what was going to happen. It was inevitable. His voice shook as he said, "Get the grunts away. They shouldn't see this." Arceus knows how much it would scar them. He'd hate for them to memorize him in peril, defeated, not by a ten-year-old, but by foolishness, a death caused by his own actions.
The admins herded away the wide- and teary-eyed peons. Maxie couldn't see his face, but he knew Tabitha was blubbering like a Whismur.
Courtney hated what was happening but knew she had to do something. "Maxie. I. Will come get you." She crouched and prepared to come after him.
"Stop. You'll fall, too." Maxie took a deep breath. How could he feel so high when he was so low? The lava glimmered enticingly.
"Camerupt, Crobat, and Mightyena are still with me."
Tabitha told him about his time at Devon. Development for newer pokeballs was in a different department than he was in, but he'd heard from a coworker how testing worked.
Three pokeballs were tossed up. Tabitha recognized the significance and lunged to grab them. He caught two and fumbled on the third. Courtney snatched it before it plummeted into the cauldron.
Maxie opened his mouth to say something, but stopped and shook his head. He looked down, then back up. Was he really wrong all this time? Was this Arceus' way of punishing him?
He swallowed, cleared his throat, and said, "Tell Archie―"
The rock branch snapped and he plummeted. He screamed, unable to stay aloof at death in motion. His headache worsened until he he couldn't see or hear. He kept screaming. It couldn't end soon enough.
His head split and folded like a popcorn kernel. The trauma cauterized instantly. Even in death, he was not silent. Flesh abandoned moisture, fat crackled. Bone fragments stuck fast in the lava's black skin, folded around Maxie's charred form. His hair burned like a wick down to his scalp and continued down the gaping wound that used to be his face. Not even his coat survived.
Some sour emotion rose up in Tabitha's gut and turned to thick bile and acid that needed to get out. He painfully purged, ruining his clothes. His diaphragm wouldn't let him upright until bile dripped from his nose. A soiled hand found the only other admin's. "Courtney," he pleaded.
"This shouldn't have been able to happen." She stared at the molten lake, at the skidmark her leader left, until the image embedded itself in her eyes. Her eyes, intact, connected, solid; unlike Maxie's, burnt, drooling, like sunny-side up eggs pierced by a fork. "What did he want to tell Archie?"
Tabitha yanked her up the path. "I don't know, confess his undying love?" He took his anger out in sarcasm. His face reddened more and he buried it in his free hand. "Arceus damn him," he said to himself, "If only I― No."
The admins hid behind an outcrop at the trail's neck. Courtney sat on the ground, fighting tears. Tabitha sat with his knees drawn, fighting the urge to purge. She rubbed his back, both needing a friend, and ended leaning a cheek on his shoulder. His belly calmed, but he still shuddered with sobs.
Courtney murmured, "Maxie is gone. Not his ideals. We can continue Team Magma."
"I know he chose us for a reason, but I wanted to rule the new world with him and you," Tabitha confessed.
The other admin stared into the distance. She had her usual far-away glare, but it was only a facade. She said, "Perhaps Maxie wanted to surrender. To Archie. This is a minor setback."
"Minor setback‽ Maxie's dead!" He pulled his face out of his hands. "If he died on his own, that'd be one thing." Tabitha didn't mention his aspirations of becoming the new leader. Guilt threatened to overflow his stomach. "We watched him burn. His body is still there. We were with him at his moment of death."
riley once forgot the name for lava and called it volcano juice, thus the absurd title for such a serious fic.
i may or may not have made a self-insert cameo because MAGMA REPRESENT
funfact some of these characters are trans
never name your background characters because youll spend forever on and name them after IRL people.
originally wrote 1376 words but cut out the last 287. everything from "Arceus damn him," down is new. i still have the scrapped ending, but don't expect me to post it in a fic. if you wanna know what it was PM me
research was soooooo much fun but p hard. despite it being recorded that humans have died in volcanoes, unfortunately theres no photos. hiroshi ouchis the closest one i wanted.