Beyond All Part 1 ( The Searches)

Chapter 13

The Planet of Burning Ash

Luxy and Planta's situation was like Clayton and Saliso's. The difference was, they landed on a hot planet, instead of cold. Their pod also went through an opening in its atmosphere. It had the danger of burning them as opposed to freezing them.

"Do you see any place to land?" Lapisa asked.

"No, it's like this planet is nothing but lava."

"What's that spec off in the distance?" Lapisa asked, pointing. Planta looked through her binoculars and saw a mountain in the distance. They went to it and landed their pod on the top. Then they grabbed their supplies and stepped out. When they did, they saw the other side of the mountain was mostly rock. It also had some rivers of lava, though

"Is it really safe to leave the pod here like this?" Planta asked, after they started making their way down.

"It doesn't have the energy to fly anywhere else. All we can do is see if anything on this planet can help us." When Lapisa finished speaking, she and Planta felt the ground start shaking. Lava shot out from the top of the mountain they were on, destroying their pod

"So much for that," Planta said.

" Just our luck, we had to land on the mountain that was about to erupt." The ground began shaking again.

"I don't think that's a rare occurrence!" Planta said as a jet of lava shot up, just in front of them. They started racing down, trying to avoid the lava.

Before they reached the base, the strongest quake of all shook the mountain they were standing on.

"Lapisa!"

" Right!" She responded, taking out her Citharem.

The biggest wave of lava began shooting up towards them. Lapisa created a sound barrier to block it. Planta reinforced Lapisa's barrier with electricity. This allowed them to make it to the base of the volcano. When they did, Lapisa fell to her knees and the barrier went away.

" Are you okay?" Planta asked, breathing heavily.

" Yeah, just a little winded that's all. How are you feeling?"

" I'm not going to be able to use my outer or inner energy for a while."

" Same here. What's with this planet? It's like no matter where you go, it's a death trap!" Planta said, seeing more jets of lava shoot up far away from them.

" But, we can't just rush and get ourselves killed. At the very least, no lava seems able to reach where we are."

" Yeah, but we can't stay here. Man is this ash thick!" Planta said, then started coughing.

" This is nothing to a reptilian, like me. Your fish-man lungs just aren't equipped to deal with kind of environment."

" No kidding. Wait, I'm starting to notice a pattern."

" Pattern? What do you mean?"

" Take a look," Planta said, stepping aside. Lapisa saw more lava shooting up. At first, the streams seemed to be random. But, after observing it for a few minutes, she saw that there was, in fact, a pattern to it. They were able to use this knowledge to safely trek the planet, without getting hurt. Eventually, they came across a massive mountain, that was far taller than the ones they had seen. But, this one looked different from the others. Upon inspecting it closer, Planta was the first to figure out why,

" Do you see what I'm seeing?" Planta asked.

" A pain in the ass to climb?"

" That too. But, I meant the various cracks in this mountain. Look at the shape of them."