12. Race for Survival

As the plane skidded towards the Forbidden Mine, xxLilBunny found herself able to move again as JapansAce quickly vanished. Moments before the plane hit the Forbidden Mine, xxLilBunny jumped out and quickly dived behind a nearby pile of logs. She watched, hidden behind the log pile, as the plane burst into flames...

But her ordeal wasn't over yet - she had been spotted by the Scorpion King, who realised that the telepathic link between it and her was still active - meaning that she was still alive...

A flash of green lightning struck the pile of logs and xxLilBunny was slammed into the hill by one of them. This was immediately followed by another, which, if it had struck only five inches more to the left, would have shattered her respawn device. She immediately got up and sprinted towards the Forest of Silence - she would run to Hillville and notify the others. She couldn't risk the life of another pilot, and besides, she herself was already outnumbered ten to one. She couldn't endanger the life of someone else...

With a tremendous boom, the engine of the crashed airplane suddenly exploded. xxLilBunny was thrown to the ground by the force of the explosion as lightning bolts rained down around her, narrowly missing her...

She picked herself up and began sprinting away again, moments before another lightning bolt struck where her head was...

xxLilBunny continued running for her life. Lightning bolts struck behind her, and she swerved left and right to dodge them. Occasionally, one of the bolts hit a Skalari, and it was immediately obliterated...

As xxLilBunny ran through the Forest of Silence, she couldn't help but notice that the lightning bolts seemed to be striking repeatedly in a circle around her, and they were getting closer...

She only had a limited time to react as she kept running forward..

As the next strike of ten lightning bolts landed feet away from her, she immediately sprinted forwards out of the circle. The next moment, all ten lightning bolts struck at one location, the place where she would have been, had she not sprinted...

She had now reached the Ghost Town - there were only Greenville and James Isle left to run through before everyone would know the truth of what had happened inside the Red Desert Ruins. Dodging back and forth, she managed to misdirect the green bolts of lightning as the Scorpion King and its minions attempted to hit her. Gasping and out of breath, she saw Dyrano Cave in the distance and decided to take refuge inside it.

She ran inside the dark cave full of Skalari puppets, and sat down near the entrance, a safe distance away from them. She breathed heavily, and heaved a sigh of relief - the Scorpion King couldn't possibly get her there...

Suddenly, the cave began to tremble. xxLilBunny stared around, horrified. She didn't know what was happening, and hid in a corner, near the entrance...

Outside the cave, the Scorpion King and its minions repeatedly struck Dyrano Cave over and over again. xxLilBunny looked outside and to her horror saw that boulders were gradually being knocked off, blocking the entrance and sealing her in. Forced with no choice, she dashed out and continued running, as a giant rock missed her by millimetres...

As she ran across the Bridge of Fog towards Greenville, the Scorpion King decided to drown her. Bolts of lightning struck at both ends of the bridge, attempting to collapse it. xxLilBunny knew that she didn't have a lot of time. There was one minion working at each end of the bridge, while four attempted to strike xxLilBunny directly as she ran. Suddenly, Noemig, Viewtifulboi, JapansAce and Runaria materialised in front of xxLilBunny, blocking her path...

As more and more pieces of the bridge fell into the water below, xxLilBunny was trapped between a lightning bolt and four minions...

"Guys... we're all friends, right? And... and... friends wouldn't hurt each other, right?"

The lightning strikes suddenly stopped, and Viewtifulboi, Runaria, JapansAce and Noemig stopped their advance. If xxLilBunny had taken another step backwards, then she would have no doubt fallen into the river...

The Scorpion King ordered its minions to attack over and over again, but they did nothing. How dare they disobey him?! These were the best people it could find, and here they were, not attacking because of some words?! "Weak..." it thought to itself.

One final lightning bolt from the Scorpion King itself struck xxLilBunny directly, and she flew off of the bridge and into the river...

Many of the dormitories of Owl School were left open. Magics had insisted that there was no need to panic, since they had trapped the Scorpion King already inside Itnin's tomb - or so he thought...

xxLilBunny sprinted into the Owl dormitories. She quickly spotted that all the doors had been left open. She looked inside each one of them, spotting Magics, HuguesdePayens, SnowOwl, Domennico, Kimina, Yuumei, Ciggss and Fuchsia, amongst others. She went into Magics's room, and poked him awake.

"Ow... oh, it's you, Bunny... how's things?" Magics asked, a bit sleepily, turning around to look at her.

Suddenly, xxLilBunny glowed an evil green, and a haze of green mist began to pass out of her...

Magics yelled out loud and quickly jumped off the bed moments before he would have been possessed. He leapt out of a window and ran towards the airplane, with xxLilBunny sprinting in hot pursuit after him.

Just as Magics jumped out of the dormitory, unseen to him, ten jets of green lightning struck the dormitories, but he was deaf to these noises. All he could think about was getting away from there as soon as possible, away from his helpless friend as she tried furiously to catch up...

He jumped inside the plane, and told the Pilot one word - "Mara." Before the Pilot could ignite the throttle, however, he had jumped out of the other side through a window. He slammed the window shut with a tremendous bang, as xxLilBunny ran into it and the throttle was started. Magics quickly dashed to the other side and slammed the door shut, as the plane takes off moments afterwards...

Magics heaved a sigh of relief. That had been a close call. He quickly went back to his dormitory...

But he only found a pile of rubble.

Magics resumed looking at the pile of rubble in shock. How was that possible?! He'd only left for a few minutes at most... So many people were in there... He started searching the debris for anyone he could find, but could find nobody - no Yuumei, no Ciggss, no HuguesdePayens, no StrangerD3RK, no Kimina... not anyone. "That's weird," he thought to himself... but this thought was quickly turned to guilt - he had told everyone to sleep with their doors open... common sense then took over as he told himself that a locked door could not possibly keep the Scorpion King's bolt of lightning out of the room should it launch an attack... and at the same time, he deduced what must have happened... the Scorpion King must have managed to escape from the tomb, and now, whoever it's possessing, is launching a new attack... and nobody is safe...

Looking around him in disbelief, he also saw Mecher Melanie and Dr. Chow on the floor, their eyes staring into space, an expression of shock etched forever on their faces...

"Well... good riddance there," Magics thought - the Mecher was always breaking gear and Chow had nothing but junk to offer anyway, and he viewed it as karma.

But no... there must be SOMEONE still left... Magics quickly started his journey around Kasmari, searching for survivors, while at the same time, the Scorpion King searched for more victims...

In a desloate area of the Forest of Silence, the Dark Oracles stared in horror as their barracks were crushed by the wreckage of a plane. A cold, bloodstained hand stuck out from underneath the debris of the crashed plane, still and unmoving, while a green outline faded into the distance...