Hello, lovely people!
I hope you're all well! My apologies that it's been a little while since I've updated this fic, life has been a bit busy and crazy lately.
I hope you enjoy!
Ant turned to where Madeline was sat, breathing shallowly in a desperate attempt to conserve the remaining dregs of her faltering air supply.
"Your tank is nearly empty," Ant pointed out, indicating her oxygen gage which was now almost entirely at the very end of the meter, "Are you ready?" He asked.
Madeline nodded, her eyes half-lidded and looking exhausted, "No time like the present," she replied - her voice little more than a whisper and sounding concerningly strained.
"Okay, two breath intervals?" Ant clarified: Madeline could only nod weakly as a response, her utter lack of air limiting her actions.
"Okay," Ant muttered again, mostly to himself, in a rather shaky voice, almost as though he were attempting to calm his own nerves with his brief and somewhat reassuring words. He then reached forward to gently help Madeline to get the heavy and currently almost-useless scuba tank from her back as it was now only serving to be a hindrance and was quite literally weighing her down.
Next, he met Madeline's eyes, silently checking she was prepared, and as the two shared a meaningful look filled with fear and uncertainty, they both appeared to reach the conclusion that there was no going back and this was their one and only feasible option.
With that realisation becoming clear, Ant took a deep breath before quickly taking off his rebreather and holding it out to Madeline, who took it and quickly took in her own deep breath. A few moments later, she exhaled and took another deep breath before handing the rebreather back over to Ant, who did almost the exact same and handed it back to Maddie.
Both had the exact same thoughts running through their minds: they sincerely hoped their families would be quick in getting them out of the clam.
There was a long, tense stretch of uncomfortable silence which descended on the rescue party on the outside of the clam now that there was complete radio silence radiating from their family members trapped inside the giant sea creature.
This awful, deafening silence was interrupted (unexpectedly) by Hammerhead of all people.
"C'mon then, let's get'em out," he barked at them, "Now!"
"Alright, let's do it," Will responded in agreement.
"We'll have to be quick because-" Kaiko was cut off by the deafening sound of lava spewing from the erupting seabed. It was rushing towards them - and the clam - at terrifying speed.
"Go!" Fontaine and Finn spoke in unison from the rover, sharing a look of surprise with each other when they realised that they had spoken the same words in the exact same moment.
"Everyone help with the clam!" Kaiko cried out and everyone - both pirate and Nekton - seemed to spring into action and pour all their efforts into hauling the clam towards the Aronnax. Even Jeffrey was there to help in the shadow knight, and somehow the rescue party made it a fair stretch at a reasonably slow pace before there were any more catastrophes.
Following that short distance they had travelled, everything seemed to fall apart yet again.
A particularly violent tremor from the volcano sent a spattering of rocks hurtling through the boiling water heading straight for their direction. One particularly large and jagged piece of stone was flung directly at the rover's canopy and in a moment of panic, Fontaine was forced to rapidly swerve out of the way of the volcanic missile to avoid the large glass dome being shattered. Adding another crisis to this entire situation would most definitely not help the scenario. Unfortunately, this moment of quick-thinking from Fontaine did not account for her having to move the rover away from the clam and therefore leave all the clam's support down to her parents and Hammerhead who apparently could not take this much weight so quickly with almost no warning.
The clam was tumbling towards the shaking ground and landed with a sharp thud: inside the clam, both Madeline and Ant were thrown about violently and had to fight to cling onto their feeble air supply.
"Sorry!" Fontaine said over the comms, "The giant rock being thrown at us took me by surprise,"
"It's okay, Fontaine," Kaiko replied, "I don't think any of us were really prepared for it,"
Fontaine was just moving the rover back to the clam to get a better grip on it when the seabed let out a deafening, ominous rumble, suddenly forming an enormous crack and began splitting apart right beneath the clam.
"Everyone stand back!" Will yelled, planting one of the legs of his knight on either side of the enormous fissure and - with some struggle and much strength - lifted the clam.
Finn leaned in a little to Fontaine without taking his eyes away from Will for even a moment and mumbled to her quietly, "Is your dad really trying to hold the Earth together with his legs?"
"Uh, it looks like it," Fontaine replied from her seat beside him, also not looking away from her dad.
"Is that going to work?" He asked uncertainly.
"Almost definitely not," Was Fontaine's bitterly truthful reply a moment later.
It seemed almost as though her words were right on cue as mere moments later the ground gave way directly underneath Will's feet and both he and the clam were sent tumbling into the boiling abyss below.
"Will!" Kaiko yelled after him in despair as she watched half of her family disappearing into the magma spewing depths of the Earth's crust.
Kaiko instantly sent out cables from her knight in a desperate attempt to catch Will or the clam but after they momentarily caught on to the mag knight, Kaiko was pulled down after them and Fontaine immediately set off, heading straight for her family: either her mum, the clam or Will in the mag knight. Finn, of course, didn't have much say in the matter, being in the rover with Fontaine and was dragged along into perilous danger alongside her. Obviously, Jeffrey followed straight after, still inside the shadow knight. And then, Hammerhead was momentarily left by himself at the surface as everyone else had instantly set off towards the dangerous molten lava below the seabed but after a few moments of staring after them and wondering just how insane the Nekton family actually was, he decided that if they were this crazy, he should definitely be crazier (as a pirate) and so he also began swimming down towards the hazardous lava that was glowing in a distinct shade of threatening orange heading in the direction of the clam.
Seconds later, the silhouette of a clam being raised from mortal peril by three knights, a rover and a shadowy figure in a Dark Orca diving wetsuit against a background of glowing lava could be seen.
"Okay, let's go, quickly!" Kaiko urged, desperate to get out of there before anything else could go wrong and their family be placed into any more mortal peril - even for the Nektons, this level of life-threatening danger was pushing it.
The rescue team were moving quicker now as they lugged the enormous clam between them, hoisting it a short distance above the unstable seafloor as they made their way over to the Aronnax. The volcanic eruption was becoming all the more violent by the second, sending aggressive spurts of rock and lava spewing dangerously in all directions.
A particularly volatile rumble brought a large amount of lava raining down close to the rover, only just missing the Nekton vehicle.
"That was close," Fontaine sighed, breathing out heavily.
"Uh, Fontaine," Finn spoke, his attention focused on something off in the distance near to the volcano, "That lava was pretty high and it wasn't even a full eruption, if this actually blows, it'll be much higher and the Aronnax-"
"The Aronnax will be hit by the lava," Fontaine finished his thought.
"Can it handle that much heat?" Finn asked cautiously.
"Did you seriously just ask if our submarine could survive a volcanic eruption?" Fontaine responded, staring at him as though he had lost his mind.
"Well, I don't know! It seems pretty much indestructible to everything else!" Finn replied, "The Dark Orca can barely handle being submerged in water some days, why would I know what your sub is capable of?"
Fontaine rolled her eyes at that, "No, Finn, I don't think the Aronnax can survive a full blown eruption, a bit of heat, sure, but not an actual eruption,"
"Mum!" she called out over the comms suddenly, "When the volcano blows, the lava will hit the Aronnax!"
Kaiko looked up in alarm at that, "I'll move it fast, when you give the word!" she called and then carefully released the clam. She let it go slowly to prevent it's weight from being immediately landed upon the others all in one go. After that, Kaiko began heading over to the Aronnax as quickly as she could to protect the submarine from the volcano.
Not long after Kaiko had left, the seabed began trembling again with more vigour and strength than before and the rescue party all wordlessly took that as a sign to move a little quicker. Finally, they reached the Aronnax and swam a little higher to make it into the submarine's loading bay but before they could gently lower the clam - and themselves - down onto the ground, a violent tremor and further erupting from the volcano sent them all crashing down to the floor.
And with that: Hammerhead; Will in his knight; Jeffrey in the shadow knight; Finn and Fontaine in the rover; and the clam were all flung down into the Aronnax's loading bay with an almighty crash. Fontaine yelled for her mum to go through her comm and within moments, Kaiko was piloting the Aronnax out of the way of the volcano's eruption.
I hope you enjoyed! There should only be a few more chapters after this one but I've decided that I want to add an epilogue also so that will be coming too. I apologise if there are any mistakes in this chapter, I tried to proof read but I probably missed some.
If anyone has any suggestions of what to write next, please feel free to let me know, I'd love to hear from you!
Until next time! :D
