Chapter 7: Returning to the Menhir Hills

WARNING: The following chapter is a bit boring, but hey, I had to put it in my story, so the story would flow...

Back in the peaceful, quiet Menhir Hills, in the pirates' second hideout, Clark was still sitting tiredly, leaning against the wall, and waiting for Rayman to return with the elixir. He wondered if Rayman had survived the Cave Guardian's gauntlet...
Then, he heard footsteps coming. It was Rayman--and, yes, in his hands was the Elixir of Life!
"Here, Clark!" spoke Rayman! "Here's the elixir!"
"Thanks, little buddy," said Clark, still tired. Rayman handed it over to Clark. Slowly, Clark drank from it.
Before Rayman could ask, "Does it taste good?", Clark stood up, his eyes big with excitement, and he yelled, "YAHOOOOO!" It was obvious that he was feeling better, now. He picked up Rayman, hugging him.
"Now, I can go crush a whole bunch more pirates!" he yelled!
"Coooool," replied Rayman. "But, put me down first, okay?"
Clark did. Then, he charged through the wooden door leading into the next room of the hideout, screaming in excitement, "YEEEEEP!!!!!" Clark made a big hole in the door when he charged through it.
Rayman followed Clark through the hole.
In the second room, there weren't any more Robo-Pirates, to Clark's disappointment. There was a spiky, iron gate blocking the way into the next hallway. Not even Clark could break this one down! The gate was too strong. He attempted to smash through it, but he failed, and it only gave him a fist-ache.
Rayman looked up. Was there any button here to open up this gate? Nope, but there was a purple flying target above him! He shot energy at the flying target, to create a magic rope which he could swing across. From here, he could reach another purple target, and then a third one, which was even higher above him! While swinging from the third flying purple target, he could reach a tiny hole in the wall up above, which he jumped through. When he dropped out through the other side, he landed in the hallway on the other side of the metal gate.
There was also a red button on the wall here. Rayman thought, "Hmmm..." He shot a ball of energy at it. This caused the metal gate to open!--so Clark could get past it and come with Rayman.
"I hope there's some pirates here for me to crush..." said Clark.
There was a sharp left turn in the hallway ahead. There was a beautiful, yellow stained glass window on the wall, and also another wooden doorway blocking their path. No problem for Clark, who quickly charged through it, just as he had done with the first wooden doorway. Behind this doorway, there was a third room, which contained an open doorway leading outside to the backyard of the hideout.
Rayman went through the exit, but Clark spoke: "I can't come with you. There's some bramble outside that I can't get across. Anyway, I'm off to find more Robo-Pirates to fight. See you later, little buddy!"
Rayman still was wondering what that elixir had tasted like...
The morning sun was shining brightly here. In the backyard of the hideout, there was green grass, a wooden tree stump, and--just as Clark had mentioned--a bunch of red, prickly bramble covering the path to the right!

Then suddenly, Murfy flew by and buzzed: "Awwh, Rayman! I didn't think you'd ever get past the Cave of Bad Dreams!...It's good to see that you're still alive! And look what I found in the Tree Tops while you were getting the elixir..." He handed Rayman several Yellow Lums. Rayman now had 280 Yellow Lums!
"Now be careful!" Murfy warned him (and he shivered while speaking this next sentence). "In this area, there's a giant, flying missile shell that has come to life, and it's heading over this way!"
This information scared Rayman.
"The shell might start chasing you around," continued Murfy, "but Ly told me that it might be possible to tame it by tiring it..."
Rayman thought about it.
"Thanks for the hint," he said, bowing to Murfy.
"No problem," said Murfy, flying away. "Anyway, I've got to get outta here, before the flying shell comes..."
Everything was then quiet for a few seconds.
Then unexpectedly, and from out of nowhere, the flying shell suddenly came noisily zooming towards Rayman! It was a grey, metal shell with a skull painted on its back. Rayman tried hiding behind the wooden tree stump to avoid it. But the shell curved around the tree stump and followed him there. Then Rayman quickly remembered Murfy's advice.
Rayman kept running in circles, to avoid the flying shell, and the shell still kept following him. This went on for about fifteen seconds, but eventually, the giant shell got tired of chasing Rayman around, and so it screeched to a halt and stopped.
Rayman then sighed in relief...but he still didn't know how the heck he would get over the bramble on the path on the right.
He sat on top of the giant tired shell, while pondering over the problem.
Suddenly, the giant missile shell started flying again, with Rayman still sitting on it! An it flew over the area with the red bramble that was on the ground, and it kept on flying! It picked up more and more speed.
Across this bramble area, there was a cave-like tunnel. The speedy shell flew through it. There were some large menhirs sticking out of the ground. They fell over, and would have squished Rayman and the flying shell, if the shell hadn't steered around them.
This was a wild ride. After passing several more menhirs, the shell flew over to an outdoor area. Here, there was a giant gap in the ground, hundreds of feet below them. Rayman looked down. It was very dizzying. He wouldn't want to fall off the shell and fall down into there! Then, he suddenly lost his grip, fell off the flying shell, and fell into there.
Rayman screamed, as he plummetted rapidly down into the deep gap below. It was gonna be a super-hard landing...
Luckily, there was a Teensie standing down there, and it saved Rayman from a hard landing, by quickly creating a magic portal for Rayman to fall through. Rayman fell through the portal, instead of landing on the very hard ground below. Rayman got sucked into the portal and got teleported to somewhere new...
Rayman's total number of Yellow Lums was now 305 out of 999. He still wasn't finished yet...