Hi!

I hope you're having a nice day! I'm so incredibly sorry and I want to officially apologise that This took so long to write, I promise, I'm trying to get back on track with writing it's just that I've got a lot of works in progress that I'm trying to work on even though most of them won't be finished for weeks, most likely months or longer. XD

vellabee - thank you so much for reading and encouraging me to (finally) finish this chapter. The next one should be coming soon and again thank you so much, I'm glad you're enjoying this so far! :)

I don't have much else to waffle on about today so:

I hope you enjoy!

"And this should fix your comms," Will said as he finished flicking switches and fumbling with wires stuck to the back panel of the rover.

"Yeah, Dad, we can hear you," Fontaine confirmed.

" Perfect, now, do the engines work? " Will asked.

Remarkably, Will and Hammerhead had actually worked well together. They had worked in almost perfect harmony to help lift and upright the rover ( although technically, Will had done the most work given that he was in a knight but Hammerhead still put effort into the task). Now that the rover had been turned around, without causing too much turbulence for the pair stuck within it, and communications had been fixed, the only thing left to check was the engines.

Fontaine gave the engines an experimental start up, almost jumping in surprise when they actually started.

"Yes!" Finn cried out as Fontaine let out a triumphant cheer.

"Okay, now, let's get out of here," Will declared.

"-and then Jeffrey saved the day, again, like he always does! " Ant declared.

Ordinarily, Madeline would have told Ant to hush up long ago but she was honestly kind of glad to hear his endless wittering on, not that she would ever tell him that.

Ant was surprised he hadn't been told to stop talking yet. He had been non-stop rambling to the pirate about random stories and adventures that he had been on: telling her about Jeffrey's numerous talents; about when he had once found what he swore to be a whole, secret mermaid colony but then it had vanished before he could show his parents; about every time he went swimming with whales and even mentioning the terrifying sea Dragon that appeared every forty years, though, of course, he left out the part about it guarding the chronicle, since, Madeline was still a pirate after all.

He seemed to have almost exhausted his supply of tales to tell and was starting to run out of things to say, since Madeline had hardly said anything in quite a while. He wanted to speak to Kaiko but he was fairly sure that his mother was still busy and presumably nothing had changed regarding the details of their rescue since they hadn't received any messages.

Finally, Ant just decided to go for it and he pushed the button on his communicator to call his mum.

Kaiko picked up after just a few moments.

"Ant, what is it, is everything okay?"

" Yeah, we're fine, it's just been a while, we haven't had an update in ages, what's going on out there? " Ant asked, glancing at Madeline as he spoke as she seemed to come out of her invisible shell slightly.

"Well, Fontaine is still missing and I haven't seen Finn in a while or your dad, or Hammerhead, it's just me here, waiting for them to turn up," Kaiko replied .

"It's getting pretty hot in here, how's the volcano doing?" Ant asked.

"I don't know until Hammerhead and your father get back," Kaiko replied, trying and failing to hide the sigh and exasperation in her voice.

"Where would everyone have gone?" Ant asked.

" I don't - wait, is that? Fontaine? Will? Working together with Finn and Hammerhead? " there was a long silence before Kaiko eventually said, "I'll be back in a moment, I promise I'll keep you updated, Ant,"

The returning group looked perfectly normal and happy, if a little worse for wear when Kaiko came close enough to get a good look at their faces.

"Where have you been?" She asked, almost trying to sound mad but the anger in her voice was far outweighed by relief at seeing the missing half of her family.

Finn and Fontaine shared a look, as did Will and Hammerhead before eventually Fontaine spoke up.

"It's a long story, Mum, we had some-" Fontaine paused as she thought about the best way to phrase their situation, "-technical difficulties, with the rover,"

Finn nodded at this and while Will seemed slightly amused at his daughter's response, he also nodded in confirmation when met with Kaiko's questioning gaze, Hammerhead honestly seemed to be in a daze until Kaiko's violent finger snapping brought him out of it.

"We need to use the laser cutter to free the clam and then we should be clear to lift it and get it out of the danger zone," Kaiko said.

"Speaking of which, we've set up a layer of rocks around the volcano to hopefully stop the lava flow temporarily but it's not looking good, Kaiko, the volcano could blow at any moment," Will spoke up.

" All the more reason to work quickly then, we have to go, now! " Kaiko declared.

"Mum!" Came Ant's voice over the comms, " Update, " he reminded her.

"We're back on track," Fontaine replied to her brother.

" Fontaine, you're back! Wait, where were you?" He asked.

" No time to explain, moral of the story is that we're here now and we can get back to getting you out of this clam, " Kaiko said.

Ant nodded and finally lowered his comm, turning to his clam-mate he said, "They found Fontaine, and Finn, I'm assuming, they said they're going to get us out of here soon, "

"I hope so," Madeline said quietly, with an anxious glance towards her oxygen gage.

Yup. That determined it. Ant definitely preferred terrible pirate Mad Madeline to the girl who was now trapped in the clam with him. It was like she was a whole new person... And he definitely didn't like it.

Yep. Madeline already knew she would have to find something seriously interesting to blackmail this annoying do-gooder with once they got out. Maybe his sister knew of something that she could use against him. Failing that, she would just have to sneak away for a while, to give her time to search for his diary. Finn would probably cover for her and Fontaine might be useful for pointing her in the right direction. In fact, the Nekton daughter might even aid in her search, the Nekton kids might not fight quite as often or as wholeheartedly as Madeline and her brother, but the youngest pirate did find it hard to believe that Fontaine wouldn't launch at the opportunity to find dirt on her brother.

Now, she just had to make sure she made it out of this clam alive. Although, admittedly, the gage on her oxygen tank that was drifting closer and closer into the red zone was clearly warning her otherwise.

Yup, just had to put Maddie in a bit more danger, sorry folks but don't worry, I'm sure she'll end up getting out before she runs out of air... Maybe... ;)

Sorry again that this took so long to finish. XD

Thankfully so much for reading and please review, I'd love to know what you think of this (long-awaited) chapter.

Until next time!

Kiwi :)