Author's Note – XD I was listening to Hunger Games videos while typing this. 3 (typed that a few days ago XD)
They took Heral as far as the summit, which took almost a good hour to reach. Heral stayed in the Jetstream to fly until they reached just over the mouth of Mt. Uriel. He made a few circles over it until Pleecy was certain they were close enough to the mouth, but not to close so Heral wouldn't get caught in the updrafts of hot air from the volcano. Heral hovered about seven feet over the mouth, body twirling and twisting in the air like a streamer, feathers reflecting bloodily from the magma's faint light.
Looking down from Heral's back, Ley and Pleecy could see the gaping maw of the volcano, easily Heral's length in diameter. Down below at least fifty feet was a churning stew of molten rock: magma, bubbling and red-orange-with-streak-of-yellow hot. In the middle of the opening, they could see a small island of perfectly circled rock that was about one fourth of the mouth's size, big enough to hold one person at a time.
Pleecy, unaffected by the sight of the planet's deadly blood, moved to Heral's prehistoric head, steadying herself on the ridges above his eyes on the very top of his head. She looked down on the mountain's maw, examining, waiting.
Eager.
Heral held his head as level as he could, making a few objecting rumbles. Finally, Pleecy smirked like someone looking for thrills and front flipped into the volcano. One, two, three, four, five, Ley counted at least seven summersaults until Pleecy landed in her usual crouched way on the rock isle like the epic heroine of a myth. She stood, brushed herself off a few seconds for show, and called up to Ley in a happy tone you wouldn't expect someone surrounded by magma to have: "Your turn!"
Ley focused, and tapped Heral on the top of the head to get him to straighten out. He did, so he looked like a runway for an airplane; a wriggling, flying, scaly runway. Near his tail but not far enough for Heral to not be able to support her, Ley began a flying leap. She ran from his tail to his head, gave a mighty jump to about three feet above Heral's head, and did a few summersaults like Pleecy did, but not as many. She looked like a spy tumbling down from a ceiling to steal something. Upon landing, however, Ley ended up on her feet staggering to try and stop and Pleecy had to help her so she didn't stumble off the rock circle. Ley looked up in time to see a ribbon of green move over the mouth quickly, glinting in the sunlight.
The room they dropped into was the cone of the volcano. Ley flipped her gray-and-purple goggles down over her eyes, and both girls' clothes flared around in the hot air: Pleecy's sleeves and dress, Ley's Dib-like vest. It was a chamber as big as a classroom if not bigger, with sloped in sides of brown igneous rock and a few spires of rock sticking up in the lake of magma - stalagmites, Ley guessed. Pleecy was still grinning like crazy, as if she'd wanted to be doing this insane stunt again forever. Yes, Ley figured, Pleecy'd been in the volcano before. Pleecy did a sideways point like an explorer off to the right, where a pathway of stepping stones about a foot apart from each other sat.
"Thankfully, this part of the planet's not tilted toward the sun much at the moment, which means that the magma will be more receded. That way's the main chamber. Dracon's Root, if I remember correctly, usually grows in a few of the lower chambers that branch off from there," she said, dropping her hand down. Thank Irk for an Irken's perfect memory: as they say in space, an Irken never forgets! Which is true, thanks to the PAK's backing up of memories in its memory banks.
"You first, Pleecy: you seem to know the mountain better, anyway," Ley said over the low rumble of spinning magma. Pleecy just looked at her oddly, hearing the miniscule amount of fear in Ley's voice.
Pleecy laughed lightly. "You've lost your edge, Ley: Ah right, follow me. Make sure to keep your balance. Do what you need to; hold a stick, put your hands out, whatever."
"Besides holding on to each other," Ley pointed out as Pleecy moved toward the stepping stones.
"Yes: that would be bad." She said over her shoulder. Pleecy leapt onto the first stone, arms out, then the next and the next, until she reached the huge arched entrance into the next chamber. She seemed to stay absolutely level as she hopped from stone to stone, seemed so sure, so confident in her movements. Ley, on the other hand, hadn't pulled stunts like this in years.
Ley looked down, knowing she'd have to watch her footing and scamper across carefully. She made her way across in the same fashion as Pleecy, except slower and more precise, careful, picking her way across.
Soon, they both were on the walkway along the right part of the archway and the right wall of the next chamber. Pleecy was leaning on the right arch wall, looking sideways at Ley as she picked her way over. She helped Ley off the last stone, since she was stumbling nervous and doubled over with her hands on her knees when she hit the walkway. She had pretty much held her breath on the way over. She looked up to her blank-but-intense-faced friend. "Well," Ley said a bit shakily, "which way next?" she laughed lightly.
Pleecy smiled and, seeing a perfect drama moment, swept her arm over the view of the next chamber. Ley rolled her eyes at her friend's gesture.
The next chamber was like the last, but much the far wall was a 3-layer tier of rock, like a wedding cake, almost. In between them and the rock tiers was a canal of magma in a curved shape. There were two tunnel entrances they could see from where they were. One was off to the left, level with the curve of molten rock, with the river of magma flowing on its floor. The other was at a slant in a curved part of the wall near the ceiling. It was just above and to the left of the second tier of rock. Walking around the corner, they saw that the magma flowed from another shoot-off tunnel on the right wall. A bridge of rock arched over the magma, carved out by the constant flow of magma. It seemed to have been part of a former pipe made of rock that had the magma inside it.
"Interesting: I never assumed a volcano would be bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside," Ley said somewhat sarcastically.
Pleecy laughed a bit at that and gently facepalmed. "It's Venat, Ley," she said, laughing with exasperation. "Just like everything else in the multiverse, things aren't always what they seem…" the last part had a slight sinister sound to it. "And it's a cartoon anyway! What'd you expect?"
Ley tried to ignore the sinister-sounding part. They both looked up at the tunnels. "So, which way?"
"Dunno," Pleecy simply said. "Gotta look 'round."
Tunnel 1 had a rockslide when they found a dead end where the magma simply flowed under the rock wall and Pleecy thought that maybe there was a chamber behind the rock the magma was flowing under. Take a guess at what caused the roof to collapse. They had made a mad break for the tier chamber.
Tunnel 2 was hard to get into in the first place. Flying leaps barely made it onto its slanted floor. Instantly, the only thing found in there was a weird creature that looked like a Hogulus crossed with a Bison or buffalo or something with a nest full of eggs. Flying leaps barely made it off the edge of the slanted tunnel without becoming cooked female traveler flambé.
Tunnel 3 took a few minutes to navigate, led to more crossroads, and eventually opened up into a tall cylindrical room. All but the wall the doorway was in had magma waterfalls emptying into a pool of glistening lava: yup, lava, not magma, because the ceiling was open and full of a view of one of Venat's moons. The moon's light reflected off the horseshoe shaped pool around an oval shape piece of rock. Across the room from them, on a large piece of rock jutting out from the water – uhm, lavafall, they saw a small glittering...thing. All they could see was what looked a lot like the light from a star, silvery-lilac in the moonlight.
"Perfect," Pleecy purred.
Ley looked at her questioningly. "It's night," Pleecy explained. "A blue moon. That means the flower will be in full bloom: exactly what I need."
"A blue moon? But wouldn't you –" Ley stopped when she saw the really? look on Pleecy's face and realized she was holding back the pain of what moons do to Mystics. "Oooh, right. But wait…I thought we only needed the root. What do you mean you need the flower?"
"Oh, well, ah, uhm…m-my studies, y'know?" Ley nodded, knowing Pleecy didn't ever talk about what she does in her lower labs. "Plus, the root is what we need; the plant's named for it."
"Oh," Ley said, nodding slightly, then looking back to the large bit of sparkle on the ledge. "So, how're we going to get to it?"
Pleecy looked at her a few seconds, then Ley could see the wheels turning in her head as she smiled slowly, evilly, revealing zipper-like teeth. Ley sighed, shaking her head, as Pleecy extended her spider legs and used them to help her shoot into the air about a third of the way up at a slant leftwards. As she dropped a few feet, a pinkish-purple transparent rectangle at an inward slant appeared just below her, which she landed on, sprang off of, and soared up at a low rightward angle, like a 130 degree angle or so. Pleecy did this about two more times before she soared from the right and barrel rolled onto the ledge. Ley wasn't surprised by her friend's agility after years of seeing it; more like…intrigued, sort of, you could say. She wasn't sure herself, really.
Pleecy rolled once and got to a stance on the ledge like Spiderman to stop herself. She rose and approached the flower on the edge of the ledge.
The flower looked like it had been made by Artemis herself, or at least by some sort of magic or *magick: it was smaller than Pleecy's' hand. It looked like a silvery-lilac petal-colored lily, reflecting the moonlight strikingly like a disco ball, so when it moved it twinkled brightly and largely like they saw from the ground, a star on the earth…er, well, Venat. Oh, you know what I mean! A few bits of reflected moonlight made the lava gleam and shine too, like oil in blood. The stalk and two tiny leaves glimmered a silver-emerald, making it look like it either was half-dead or the most beautiful flower some people could think of, made of precious metals and gems instead of being a rare piece of foliage.
iLiLiLiL
"…What…the...heck...did you guys do!" Dib shrieked at the robot and rabbit in the kitchen. He had come up to grab a soda and hang out in the living room until Diz called him down. When she would, he wasn't sure, so he had come up Pleecy's kitchen elevator and soon went slack jawed.
The walls, ceiling, floor, everything, was dripping with melted chocolate – at least, knowing Gir, he hoped it was chocolate – like stalactites. Sugary, sticky stalactites Gir had no. Business. Being. Near. Gir sat on the table jutting from the wall across the room, looking as innocent (DAAWW…cue fangirl squeals) as ever, and Star was at the counter near the fridge, happily humming carefree while she stirred a bowl of brownie batter, seemingly oblivious of the mess surrounding her. She stood on a tripod stool against the counter. How she could hold the spoon with her paws, Dib had no idea, but then again Gir could hold stuff with his nubby little disguised dog arms. Go figure.
She glanced at Dib with a tip of her head. She had an apron on, which seemed kind of odd to Dib, surprisingly. Rabbit with an apron or not, he should have been used to finding odd scenes ever since Zim arrived. "Pardon? Oh. Gir wouldn't sit still and he wanted to, quote,"—she made air paw-quotes—""bake sometin' 'dan eat it"." She shrugged. "I was craving brownies anyway. And I haven't baked in a while."
Dib's antenna twitched and he raised a now-invisible eyebrow at Star. 'Since when do you crave human foods? I thought you were a frickin' bunny!" He said somewhat sarcastically, somewhat freaked. Star just shrugged again.
A voice from behind Dib said, "She's just in casual mode, Dib." He looked over his shoulder, expecting Gaz, the computer, or Diz. Sure enough, it was an Irken who looked quite similar to Tak except with more authority and height: Diz. No question about it.
"Casual mode?" Dib asked.
Diz changed the subject, seeing that Dib had no idea about Star. "Anyway, I need to get a few X-rays from you, Dib, down in the medical bay. I'll meet you down there, but be quick; I have a picnic planned for us today!"
Dib blinked in confusion, wide eyed. "A picnic?" he said in a doubtful, sarcastic tone, antennas drooping with a look on his face like really?
"Yup!" Diz cheered, nodding, smiling with eyes closing to make upside down V's. "One of the many rules we're taught as Tactic Commanders is that intelligent beings go crazy without fresh air, without interaction with other intelligent beings besides the ones they've been stuck with for days, without access to the world." Her eyes had grown a faraway look in them as she talked, and her cheery expression had faded. Her squiddly smooch threatened to expel her breakfast of snacks, but she made sure not to let it show on her face. Her antennas drooped back.
Dib snapped his finger in front of her face. "Yoo-hoo?" he whistled, "Hey, Diz? Yoo-hoo!"
Diz shook her head. "O-oh, sorry. Anyway, I'll meet you downstairs," and with that, she turned and went back down the kitchen elevator in the floor.
Okay then, let's see here," Diz said absentmindedly as she looked over the X-rays hung up over a fluorescent light with a screen set into the medical bay wall. She ran her finger over it as she looked over the pictures of Dib's organs.
Thankfully, in the time the girls had left, (about a week, maybe week and a half or so) they hadn't changed too much. Every few days Dib felt a bit sick and usually lost the last meal he had. Sometimes it wasn't as bad, but normally he said it was gut-wrenchingly painful at times, and that had Diz worried about how his body would react as the changes progressed. At least his…whatever digestion organ he had…wasn't turning knots around itself, so that was good. Maybe not the news they needed, but it was still good news nonetheless. Diz had been giving him herbs Star prescribed from Ley's botany labs to help calm his stomach…er, whatever, you get the point.
"Is it bad?" Dib asked meekly from her right, looking over the X-rays and barely understanding them himself.
Diz didn't answer immediately. "…No…" she said slowly, as if in her own world as she examined Dib's insides, which was a bit creepy to him, but he grew used to it after a few days, "Not really. Remember how we weren't sure when they'd start to merge?" she asked, pointing at picture of his whole abdomen in the left upper corner.
"Yeah…?" It had been a very odd conversation the other day: when his organs would start moving to fuse and make a squiddly smooch. Just thinking about it made him want to lose his brownies. They had discussed things like how long until it started or how long it would take…or, Dib had asked, if it would be painful ( he assumed it would, what from all the stomachaches), to which no one gave him an answer and took a sudden interest in Pleecy's tablecloth or the walls or the floor.
"Well, it's about to start. Look here." She pulled out an X-ray from the day before from a yellow folder with Irken writing on it. It sat on a table under the lights in the wall. She held this X-ray up in front of the light so Dib could see it too. "See? The liver and a few others moved a tiny bit today."
"God, how can you see that?" Dib asked exasperatedly.
Diz tilted her head and looked at him from the corner of her eye. "You can't?" she asked, honestly surprised. "Irken eyes can see much more than most species can. Just focus on the differences."
Dib remembered his new eyes and facepalmed. Whether it was because of him not remembering his eyes or not being able to see the movements, Diz wasn't sure. Turns out he was just annoyed since Diz forgot that he was still human too. "Well, it's kinda hard to focus on them if I can't see them," he mumbled, looking up a bit, his hand sliding down his face farther.
Diz rolled her eyes. "You like to argue, don't you?"
Dib opened his mouth to argue, but then Star came down. "Basket's all packed, guys." She stopped when she saw the exasperated looks on both their faces, and then backed out the doorway as the auto-door dropped down swiftly. Dib sighed and looked down.
Diz cleared her throat. "You should probably put your disguise on now." Dib looked up as she talked with a somber expression. "What's wrong, Dib?"
"Well, I was planning on keeping it off until we left, y-you know, since I'll probably have to get used to…" his voice trailed off.
Diz's eye widened. "Oh, Dib, it's not gonna come down to that!" she said, her commander training for keeping a 'proper tongue' slipping away for the moment. Diz gave him a quick hug and held his shoulders, "They're gonna make it in time; I know they will. I've known Pleecy to make even shorter deadlines than this. Don't start thinking like that or I'll get Gaz to knock some sense into you! You're human, got it?" Thank Irk for required Invader Persuasion (pep talk) classes!
Dib looked alert when she said about Gaz. His antennas perked straight forward and his eyes widened. He nodded, a sad look in his brown Irken eyes, which Diz noticed.
"Now Come on. Let's go enjoy a picnic!" Diz kept a hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the auto-door of the medical bay, crossing her fingers in silent prayer behind her back.
Author's Note - wanted to post this on Pleecy's birthday, 4-16-12, but didn't have time to finish. Omg when I was just about to finish the last paragraph, "Broken" by Seether and Amy Lee from Evanescence started playing on my playlist and I thought it fit perfectly for the last scene! XD Anyway, Thanks for Reading! ^FT^ BTW I'll explain the difference between when I use magic and magick in a different story coming up.
Lava- above ground, Magma- below ground.
P.S. I'm just about to finish rereading PJO so I may have a crossover w/ that and a side IZ story coming up while I plan for MM 2. After this.